Which Game Would You Want To Attend?

This past Saturday The Able Church's Special Olympics basketball team took 2nd place in divison 4 in the Menasha tournament. All 2nd and 3rd place teams were put into a lottery in order to advance to the next tournament before the state tournament. Unfortunately, we didn't get picked. So, our season is over, but we had a great year. One of my favorite scrimmage games was against Sybel Hopp Allumni where we were tied 40 to 40.

These Special Olympics tournaments are some of the highlights of my year. Literally, hundreds of people with disabilities from all over Wisconsin come together in one building for a fun sporting event.

When you walk into the hallways and the gym, it is like you enter an entirelly different world. You get an overwhelming sence of peace, love, care, joy, kindness, you can sense it. People wave and are excited to see you. Even those you never met come up to you and give you a hug or hand shake. Fans and athletes don't fly off the handle if a bad call is made or if johny gets pulled out of the game for awhile.

Gosh, I remember my highschool games or watching college/pro game where fans and athletes yell at coaches and the refs. Athletes hating other athletes, ect and the spirit of the games being hostile. At the Special Olympics games, many times, I saw athletes go down to the grown and someone from the other team helping them up. Genuine "congratulations!" were given winning teams and genuine "Good game" given to losing teams.

Now, there still is aggressive compitition and athletes want to win. And there is even tiffs now and then. But very minor in comparison to what we see in most highschools and professional sports. And if offended, these Athletes seem to be able to let it go rather quickly.

I've talked to Special Olympics coaches who have coached highschool or college ball all their life and they express how much better they enjoy Special Olympics. They used to be all stressed out, players hated them, parents hating them, seeing ugliness come out of themselves, seeing fights, etc.

So, which game would you want to attend or be involved in?