Special Olympics volunteers find tremendous gratification
Jun. 14—The Indiana Special Olympics Summer Games brought fewer than normal athletes together in Terre Haute for two days of activities Saturday and Sunday at Indiana State University and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
After 2020's games went virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes competed in person this year, in much warmer than normal temperatures. Athletes and Unified Sports Partners from across the state participated in a variety of sports, including bocce, bowling, cycling, horseshoes, powerlifting, swimming, track & field and volleyball.
Area 7 (which includes the counties of Clay, Daviess, Greene, Knox, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Owen, Sullivan and Vigo) usually sends about 135 athletes; this year, only 31 athletes and three Unified partners were to compete: 13 in bowling, three in cycling, seven in track & field and eight in bocce.
Unified Sports joins people with and without disabilities on the same team to make practices more fun and games more challenging and exciting.
Also a key component are the volunteers, who keep coming back, year after year.
"I've been a volunteer photographer for 25 years. It's the most rewarding weekend of the year for me," Debbie Hadley said. "It's just so gratifying to see how much the athletes enjoy it. Most of them remember me and call me the camera lady."
Hadley, who works at Providence Medical Group, said before the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions changed things, she used to take an extra vacation day so that she could take pictures during the opening ceremony.
There was one year she recalled when she rode backward during the procession on a police motorcycle escort from Indianapolis to Terre Haute to take photos.
Al Perone has been the announcer for the cycling competition for the last 12 years. Recently retired from Indiana State University after 40 years, he said just about everybody from ISU volunteers for the Summer Games in one way or another. As an alumnus of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, he encouraged his fraternity brothers to volunteer, too.
"ISU Pikes [Pi Kappa Alpha] have been doing Indiana Special Olympics Summer Games fundraisers such as the Polar Plunge and a Fire Truck Pull with Rose-Hulman Pikes for several years," Perone said. "But I wanted them to get involved with the athletes personally so they could have a 360-degree view of the event."
He recruited two fraternity brothers — CJ Martin and Michael Passmore — who were undergraduates at the time and rode tandem bikes for ISU's Trike and Tandem competition during the university's annual homecoming festivities. Now that they've graduated, they continue to volunteer for the Summer Games by coaching the cyclists.
Passmore said in his first year as coach, Vigo County didn't have any athletes participate in the cycling competition.
"The next year, we had one athlete. The second year, we had one athlete," he said. "Last year, because of COVID, we didn't have any. But this year, we're up to two athletes and one Unified Partner and I hope our team continues to grow."
Perone said his best memory is watching his first local athlete win a medal. He's known most of the athletes since they were little kids and has watched them grow up. He's even seen two of the athletes fall in love and get married — Zach Gunn and Sarah Kaiser-Gunn of Hamilton County, who compete separately on bicycles.
Hadley said she looks forward to the event each year and enjoys playing a role.
"I wouldn't want to miss any part of it," Hadley said.
Michele Lawson can be reached 812-231-4232 or michele.lawson@tribstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @TribStarMichele.
