Special Olympics

Special Olympics was established by Eunice Kennedy Shriver (1921–2009), who recognized the lack of interaction between children with intellectual disabilities (IDs) and the broader community. Special Olympics began on a small-scale in 1963 when Shriver established Camp Shriver as a summer camp for children with intellectual disabilities at her home in the suburbs of Washington, DC. By the end of the twentieth century, Special Olympics had grown into a worldwide phenomenon. The first International Special Olympics Games were held in 1968. Since that time, the organization has devoted itself to ending the social exclusion faced by those with intellectual disabilities, encouraging them to engage in sports that offer challenges suited to their individual abilities and assisting them in forging positive relationships with other ID athletes as well as those without ID.

Background

Disability is a global phenomenon. The United Nations estimates that there are one billion people worldwide who have some form of disability, and the disabled comprise 15 percent of the world’s population. Disability is closely associated with global poverty, and the percentage of disabled rises to 20 percent among the poor. The combination of disability and poverty makes vulnerable IDs even more likely than other disabled individuals to experience social exclusion, which tends to have major negative impacts on psychological health and development. In 1957, Eunice Shriver became director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation. The following year, the foundation awarded a grant of $1 million to establish the Joseph P. Kennedy Laboratory for Research on Mental Retardation at Massachusetts General in Boston. Similar grants were awarded to Stanford and Georgetown Universities for the same purpose. After John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration in January 1961, he appointed his sister Eunice to serve as a consultant on the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation.

The first session of Camp Shriver was held in June 1962 at the Shriver home with local high school and college students volunteering as camp counselors. By 1967, the summer camps were providing opportunities for more than 7,000 ID children. In October of that same year, President Kennedy signed a bill authorizing the establishment of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. In 2008, the institute was renamed to honor the work of Eunice Shriver, becoming the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Eunice Shriver knew about ID children firsthand because her older sister Rosemary Kennedy (1918–2005) had been born with disabilities. Rosemary attended school with her siblings until the age of fourteen. The Kennedy family always included her in their daily activities, and she went to parties with her brothers John and Robert and was part of the Kennedy social circle. When her father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr. (1888–1969), was appointed as Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1938–1940), Rosemary was presented at Court at the age of 23. It was at that time, however, that she began to experience violent episodes, and Joseph Kennedy chose to subject his daughter to a lobotomy without telling his wife. The surgery left Rosemary without speech or mobility, and she was placed under the care of nuns at a Catholic facility in Wisconsin. After the surgery, Rosemary Kennedy’s family rarely spoke of her in public, but Eunice Shriver chose to tell Rosemary’s story when she began to work with disabled children.

Impact

The impact of Camp Shriver and its satellites immediately became clear to ID athletes, families, volunteers, and communities. On July 20, 1968, six years after the first camp was held at Eunice Shriver’s home, the first International Special Olympics Summer Games took place at Chicago’s Soldier Field under the sponsorship of the Kennedy Foundation and the Chicago Park District. Sports competitions included the broad jump, the softball throw, 25- and 100-yard swimming competitions, the 50-yard dash, and water polo. More than 1,000 athletes came from twenty-six states and Canada to take part. In February 1977, the first International Special Olympics Winter Games were held in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Some five hundred athletes participated in skiing and skating competitions, and the event was covered by all three broadcast networks. In 1981, Richard La Munyon, the Chief of Police in Wichita, Kansas, launched the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics, which has become the largest funding annual event for Special Olympics, averaging $30 million each year. A series of "Very Special Christmas" albums was first introduced in 1987 to raise money for Special Olympics, featuring such artists as John Lennon, Josh Groban, Rod Stewart, Sting, Aretha Franklin, and Carrie Underwood. Between 1987 and 2009, the albums sold more than two million records, compact discs, and cassettes.

The Youth Unified Sports program was launched in July 1988 in Reno and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, with competitions among bowling and volleyball teams. The program was designed to allow mentally disabled athletes to train with and compete against non-ID athletes with similar or lower athletic skills by placing them together on teams. Positive aspects of Unified Sports programs has included improving athletic skills, enhancing interpersonal skills, providing greater access to communities, developing team work, forging friendships, bringing the joy of accomplishment to team members, and forging stronger relationships among families, schools, and community and sports organizations. The programs are sponsored by the Special Olympics Clubs in partnership with local schools and sports clubs.

The underlying concept of Special Olympics is that people with intellectual disabilities and those who are not disabled have much to teach one another. Researchers have found that Special Olympics improves both the physical and mental well-being of athletes, promotes greater self-esteem, and teaches the skills necessary to master particular sports. Researchers have discovered that high school and college students who volunteer for Special Olympics tend to have more positive attitudes toward all people with disabilities than they had before the experience. However, for some, the benefit may be only temporary. In 2010, more than 3.7 million athletes in more than 170 countries participated in Special Olympics. In the 2020s, there were more than 5 million athletes involved in Special Olympics.

The first Special Olympics World Games held outside the United States took place in March 1993 in Salzburg and Schladming, Austria. In June 2023, Berlin, Germany, hosted the twenty-ninth Special Olympics World Games. Some of the events in which athletes participated included skiing, swimming, badminton, basketball, bocce, bowling, cricket, cycling, equestrian, skating, hockey, floor ball, soccer, golf, gymnastics, handball, judo, kayaking, table tennis, triathlon, and volleyball. The extent of Special Olympics events has revealed that athletes with intellectual disabilities are able to prove themselves in a variety of sports while teaching others that they have much to offer one another and the world. Despite the phenomenal growth of the Special Olympics, the Kennedy family has retained a close association with the organization.

Bibliography

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Li, Chunxiao, and Chee Keng John Wang. “Effect of Exposure to Special Olympic Games on Attitudes of Volunteers towards Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disabilities.” Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, vol. 26, no. 6, 2013, pp. 515–521.

McConkey, R., et al. “Promoting Social Inclusion through Unified Sports for Youth with Intellectual Disabilities: A Five-Nation Study.” Journal of Intellectual Disability, vol. 57, no. 10, 2013, pp. 923–935.

Shorter, Edward. The Kennedy Family and the Story of Mental Retardation. Temple UP, 2000.

Shriver, Timothy. Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most. Farrar, 2015.

Siperstein, G. N., et al. “A Comprehensive National Study of Special Olympics Programs in the United States (Final Report for Special Olympics, Inc.).” U of Massachusetts, Center for Social Development and Education, 2005.

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“A Very Special Christmas.” Special Olympics, www.specialolympics.org/get-involved/partners-of-the-movement/government-ngo-partners/a-very-special-christmas. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.