If you have spent any amount of time at the Clubhouse at all you may well know that the Vice-President and I are Special Olympics coaches and Matthew is into his second year of competing. With that being said, these past few months have seemed like a veritable blur between practices and meetings with everything leading up to State Winter Games.
I have to say Matthew is a die hard. Overall this winter has been the kind of winter most people can only imagine. The type of winter with just enough snow to make driving a winter sport of its own kind and temperatures that make you throw away the sunscreen. I think I can count on one hand the number of days where visibility was next to nothing and temperatures were cold enough to make your fingers almost snap off. On days like that my goal is to hibernate inside with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the remote in the other. Matthew is a bit more ambitious and even on the days where his breath could be seen running alongside him he donned his snow gear, strapped on his snow shoes, and ran like the wind all with a smile on his face. Two blue ribbons later at Area Games he still wore a smile but the truth of the matter is he wasn't smiling because of the ribbons. He smiled because of the fun of competing. Don't get me wrong, if he were among those to receive a ribbon or medal he wore them proudly and was all too happy to show them off. But he has always been happiest just being out there with his fellow athletes and participating.
By the time State Games happened at the beginning of February he was raring to go and I can honestly say to actually be right there "in the trenches" so to speak rather than on the sidelines observing as I was last year was different. Up at 6:00 to get ready for breakfast, getting suited up and heading over to the snowshoe venue to cheer on your athletes and to prepare those athletes who would be racing that day...yeah...there is work involved. Between time trials, the actual races, and the social events we were going well into the evening. Unlike the previous year where everyone, myself included, wore so many layers of clothes we were Randy clones (think "A Christmas Story"--"I can't put my arms down!") this year bore sunshine, little to no breeze, plenty of hot chocolate, and areas of slush. It was an awesome thing being there with the athletes, cheering them on, encouraging them, watching the camaraderie and spirit everyone displayed. Matthew went on to take fourth place in both of his races--the 100/200 meter races--but he felt like he owned the world.
State Games held much excitement and among that was the 40 year celebration of Winter Games in Michigan, 35 of those years being with the Wertz Warriors, a snowmobile team which makes an annual 900 mile run across the state to raise monies for Special Olympics. Pictures, autographs, snowmobile rides for the athletes all were the order of the day for these lucky individuals and Matthew was no exception. He climbed onto that snowmobile with reckless abandon and held on as though his life depended on it. When his driver pulled away all you could hear was "WHOO HOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!"
I admit it. I laughed. But only a little bit!
