Cockeysville Mom Shares Experience Volunteering at Special Olympics

Editor's Note: The 2012 Special Olympics of Maryland Summer Games was primarily Softball events took place at Cockeysville Middle School

This Sunday, served as a satellite venue for the softball competition of the Special Olympics of Maryland. 

Athletes from across the state, including the Eastern Shore, Carroll, Harford, and Baltimore counties, congregated on three playing fields for daylong competition that would earn them one of three medals. 

Consistent with their mission to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition for adults with intellectual disabilities, Sunday’s games highlighted athletes’ base running, throwing, hitting and fielding skills. However, the true essence of the games represented so much more.

My family and I had the privilege of volunteering at the games, as the announcers and score keepers for the bronze and gold medal round games, which featured teams from the lower Eastern Shore, Carroll County and the Anne Arundel County Red Sharks. The athletes demonstrated a remarkable sense of determination, teamwork and spirit, both on the field and at bat. They jostled one another with amusing nicknames and spirited cheers and coached from the sidelines as their teammates made the snap decision to run or hold on base. 

We watched as Shawna, a player from Carroll County’s Unified team, made her first hit of the season. Even when she was picked off at second base on a subsequent play, her teammates rushed the field and embraced her in the sincerest of congratulations. We befriended Kenny, who gave our score table a nod every time he jogged out to second base. Kenny was unable to articulate his words, but his gestures allowed my children to engage him in conversation.

The gold medal went to Kenny’s team, the Red Sharks, who notched back-to-back landslide victories. Their two pitchers, Eric and Nick, were encouraged by coaches and parents to throw arching pitches that would yield a strike out. The third baseman and catcher always knew the count and communicated it to their teammates. They supported and cheered their clean-up hitter when he was picked off on a fly ball and didn’t understand his out. And when they were awarded the gold medal, the team received it with humility and pride.

Rick McCauley, the softball director, who has been volunteering for the Special Olympics for 18 years, said, "You see things at these games that you never see elsewhere."

McCauley offered an anecdote from last year’s track and field event when a gold medalist bestowed her medal on the silver medal winner who lamented not having finished first. He reminded the volunteers that these athletes, unlike the professional athletes we revere, compete for the joy of the games and the friendship and support of their fellow competitors. 

Ironically, our family was offered front row seats to Sunday’s final game of the Orioles-Phillies series at Camden Yards. By all accounts, it was a nail-biter that came down to a tenth inning walk-off by Matt Wieters. However, we would not have exchanged our seats on field 3 at Cockeysville Middle School, directly behind home plate, cheering for these incredible athletes.