Special Olympics Appropriately Named

The Minnesota Area 9/10 Special Olympics Softball Tournament was held Sunday in Faribault and once again I was inspired by watching many of the athletes.

For the last handful of years I've been honored to be asked to participate in opening ceremonies and get to send the athletes off with a "let the games begin."  I sincerely mean honored. This year organizers wanted to beat the forecast heat and cut the ceremonies short.

The enthusiasm of the athletes was anything but short.  After Faribault team member Andy Dean led his fellow athletes in their oath, "Let me win.  But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." (It doesn't get more to the point than that.) I sent them off.  Andy did a great job leading his fellow athletes with excitement.  That's special.

Everyone plays with such passion and the cheering from the bench for fellow teammates is awesome.  Even when someone walked their bench erupted with genuine joy.  We could all learn a lot from these athletes.  That's why I say Special Olympics is the appropriate name.  It is really special to watch the care and concern for each other.  For example in the Division 2 championship game New Ulm was well ahead of Leep of Mankato and New Ulm agreed to let every player on the Mankato team get one last at bat to conclude the game.  There were 14 players on the team and about 12 outs were made in that run.  On a hit to short a Mankato player advancing to second slid hard into the base and the second baseman landed on his back side.  The New Ulm player held onto the ball so the Leep team member was out.  After getting up he immediately helped up the New Ulm player and then proceeded to limp off the field.  He was smarting pretty good because he was wearing shorts.  After being called out and hurting his first thought was to help up the player that just got him out.  That's special.

I noticed when New Ulm opened the tournament playing the Faribault Flash in the first game the first baseman couldn't use his right hand to catch or throw.  Like former professional pitcher Jim Abbott he would catch the ball with his left hand and then transfer the glove to the right before making a throw.  He was very good at it and in fact played third base in New Ulm's championship win over LEEP of Mankato.  That's special.

If that had been me I probably would not have tried or would have given up after trying, because you know it took a lot of practice for him to become that quick at the transfer of the ball.

The New Ulm Wild Bunch was very good.  They breezed to the championship in Division 2 with a 16-2 win over Faribault and 23-0 victory over the Leep Cyclones.  Faribault finished second with a 12-1 victory over Leep.  There were nine teams participating and the divisions were split based on physical and mental abilities.

Division 1 champions were the LEEP Bluebirds of Mankato.  Second were the Owatonna Silver and third went to the Waseca Thunder.

Division 3 results, Elm Home White of St. Peter was tops, Fairmont Flyers second and Mower County third.

They also had a couple divisions of individual softball skills competition with athletes competing for ribbons.

There was a pretty good crowd on hand and the volunteer coaches and umpires were awesome.  Always being positive with their players even if the team was way behind.

One of the deputies I visited with said it best.  He remarked he should've brought his sons to the game to see how much passion these athletes played with during every play.

Winning isn't everything, but playing like a winner is.  That's why it is appropriately called Special Olympics.