Special Olympics

pl.n.
A program of competitive sports events fashioned after the Olympic Games and intended for mentally challenged athletes.

Special Olympics

For more information on Special Olympics, visit Britannica.com.

Contact Information Special Olympics, Inc. 1133 19th St. NW Washington, DC 20036-3604 DC Tel. 202-628-3630 Toll Free 800-700-8585 Fax 202-824-0200

Type: Private - Not-for-Profit
On the web: http://www.specialolympics.org
Employees: 160

Special Olympics wants everyone to feel special. The organization offers year-round athletic training and competition in about 30 summer and winter sports for adults and children with intellectual disabilities. More than 2.8 million athletes in more than 180 countries take part in the group's programs. Special Olympics believes participation in its activities helps athletes improve physical fitness and motor skills while developing self-confidence. The group's support comes mainly from contributions made in response to direct-mail campaigns and from individual and corporate sponsorships and contributions.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2008:
Sales: $101.7M

Officers:
Chairman and CEO: Timothy P. (Tim) Shriver
President, COO, and Director: J. Brady Lum
CIO: André Mendes

Company Perspectives Special Olympics is a worldwide organization that provides year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community. Key Dates 1968: The First International Special Olympics Games takes place at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois; Senator Ted Kennedy announces the establishment of Special Olympics Inc. 1969: The First Annual Western Regional Special Olympics takes place in Los Angeles. 1970: The Second International Special Olympics Games takes place at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. 1980: Special Olympics forms its Directorate of International Development. 1984: Sargent Shriver is elected president of Special Olympics by the board of directors. 1990: Sargent Shriver is appointed chairman of the board of Special Olympics. 1991: Special Olympics International Games changes its name to Special Olympics World Games. 1996: Timothy P. Shriver replaces his father as president of Special Olympics. 2004: President George W. Bush signs the Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act into law.

Incorporated: 1968
NAIC: 713990 All Other Amusement and Recreation Industries; 813990 Other Similar Organizations (Except Business, Professional, Labor, and Political Organizations)
SIC: 7997 Membership Sports & Recreation Clubs; 7999 Amusement & Recreation Nec

Special Olympics, Inc., is an international organization dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities to become physically fit, productive, and respected members of society through sports training and competition. It offers more than 1.4 million children and adults with intellectual disabilities year-round training and participation in a program of competitive sports events fashioned after the Olympic Games free of charge. Special Olympics is affiliated with the United States Olympic Committee and has been authorized to use the name "Olympics" since 1971 in recognition of the fact that the philosophy of Special Olympics is aligned with the Olympic ideal of sportsmanship and love of participation for its own sake. Special Olympics also runs programs that provide health screenings and healthcare to participants and that promote equality, skill building, and meaningful inclusion in their communities for people with intellectual challenges.

Founding the Games: 1955-68

On July 20, 1968, the First International Special Olympics Games took place at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Approximately 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from throughout the United States and Canada competed in track and field events, swimming, and floor hockey. The games were the culmination of the work of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Chicago Park District, and the Kennedy Foundation to promote the social and emotional benefits of physical activity and competition for people with intellectual disabilities.

Shriver had been the director of the Joseph F. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation since 1957, the first charitable foundation devoted to the benefit of people with intellectual disabilities, and a firm believer that the "best investment for social good is in people and the unlimited possibilities of the human mind and spirit." In 1955, she had traveled around the United States talking to experts and visiting the institutions that then housed people with intellectual disabilities. She recalled of this experience in Special Olympics: The First 25 Years, "There was a complete lack of knowledge about their capacities. They were isolated because their families were embarrassed and the public was prejudiced."

In 1961, Shriver organized a summer day camp, Camp Shriver, for 35 children with intellectual disabilities in the Washington, D.C., area. Using the camp as a model, she recruited public and private organizations to create similar recreational programs in other communities. The camp became a yearly event for the Shrivers. By 1963, the Kennedy Foundation supported 11 similar camps, and more than 300 similar programs began between 1963 and 1968.

In 1965, the Chicago Park District piloted a program of activities and sports for people with intellectual disabilities with a grant from the Kennedy Foundation. The district later came up with the idea of expanding the pilot into a citywide competition. A second grant from the Kennedy Foundation and the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 1968 funded the first Special Olympics in Chicago. "The Chicago Special Olympics prove a very fundamental fact," Shriver said at the opening ceremonies while an athlete ran down the track with the Special Olympics torch, "that exceptional children--children with mental retardation--can be exceptional athletes, the fact that through sports they can realize their potential for growth."

Incorporation, Growth, and Training: 1968-83

In December 1968, Senator Ted Kennedy announced the establishment of Special Olympics Inc. and presented checks for $10,000 to each of six cities that had plans to hold regional athletic competitions for people with intellectual disabilities. Rafer Johnson, a former Olympic gold medalist and longtime friend of the Kennedys, joined Shriver in raising funds for Special Olympics. With Johnson's help, the First Annual Western Regional Special Olympics took place in July 1969 in Los Angeles with athletes from Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. The Second International Olympic Summer Games took place the following year in Chicago with 2,000 athletes from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and France. In France that same year, 500 special athletes also participated in the First French Special Olympics Games.

During the early 1970s, research began to show the positive effects for people with intellectual disabilities of exercise and physical skill building as well as the benefits of having something to strive for and excel in. The Kennedy Foundation sponsored "Choices on Our Conscience: The First International Symposium on Human Rights, Retardation and Research," where the scientific community pooled ideas and findings on programs for people with intellectual disabilities in 1971. As the decade wore on, Special Olympics gained momentum, adding competitive games worldwide. The games had corporate sponsors and the athletes wore uniforms. In 1977, Special Olympics Inc. introduced the First International Special Olympics Winter Games in Colorado. By 1979, the International Special Olympics Summer Games had become an every-four-year summer event and had grown to feature 3,500 athletes from 20 countries and to involve almost one million athletes worldwide through 17,000 local, area, chapter, and national events.

Starting in the 1980s, Special Olympics focused on upgrading the quality of its training methods for athletes and coaches. For the first games in 1968, instructions for a basic ten-minute warm-up workout for participants were handed out. After 1980, Special Olympics launched a training and certification program for coaches and published its first Sports Skills Guide. In 1983, Special Olympics International announced its official training program for athletes, a program that in 2001 would be the first to receive accredited status from the National Council for Accreditation of Coaching Education.

Gaining Worldwide Recognition: 1981-91

The Second, Third, and Fourth International Special Olympics Winter Games took place in 1981, 1985, and 1989 while the Sixth and Seventh International Special Olympics Summer Games were held in 1983 and 1987. The 1987 games drew 4,700 athletes from 73 countries. The Special Olympics name was growing in notoriety and recognition. The following year, 1988, the International Olympic Committee signed an agreement in which it officially recognized Special Olympics. Earlier, the United Nations had named 1986 the International Year of Special Olympics.

Organizational advances to spread the reach of Special Olympics as a movement also took place in the 1980s. In 1980, the Directorate of International Development formed; it helped set up programs in 90 nations in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Far East by the end of the decade. Special Olympics Unified Sports debuted in 1988 to provide another level of challenge for higher-ability athletes and to promote equality, skill building, and meaningful inclusion in their communities and outside of Special Olympics for people with intellectual challenges. Teams of approximately equal numbers of Special Olympics athletes and athletes without intellectual disabilities trained and competed together on sports teams. Unified Sports programs were often initiated by community partners, including parks and recreation departments, schools, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and community sports organizations.

Special Olympics International Games became Special Olympics World Games in 1991, a year after Sargent Shriver, Eunice Kennedy Shriver's husband, took the helm as president of the organization. Shriver was the former director of the Peace Corps and the Office for Economic Development. A record 5,700 athletes from 104 countries competed at the Eighth Summer Games in 1991. Several new and expanded events were added, and for the first time, special athletes competed alongside regular athletes in the Unified Sports events of basketball, bowling, soccer, softball, team handball, and volleyball.

Reaching Milestones: 1992-99

By mid-decade, Special Olympics was the largest amateur sports organization in the world. It had programs operating in 120 countries and in all 50 states. About half a million children and adults with intellectual disabilities took part in its 23 sports. There were more than 25,000 trained and certified Special Olympics coaches in the United States. Each sport had its own Sports Skills Guide that demonstrated learning progressions for teaching that sport by skill and by sub-task to aid mastery by people with intellectual disabilities.

Special Olympics gained much media exposure during the 1990s as it celebrated three important milestones. The decade opened in 1992 with a celebration to kick off the 25th anniversary of Special Olympics at the United Nations in New York City. Throughout the next 14 months, a tour van containing a multimedia exhibit about Special Olympics made stops in 70 cities around the United States. In 1993, the fifth Special Olympics World Summer Games took place for the first time outside the United States as 60 nations sent 1,550 athletes to compete in 22 sports in Austria. The decade came to a close in 1999 with a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Special Olympics at the White House.

New Directions for a New Century: 1999-2000

Under the leadership of Timothy P. Shriver, Eunice and Sargent Shriver's son, Special Olympics launched its most ambitious growth agenda ever. Tim Shriver had assumed the presidency of the organization in 1996 and later became its chairman in 2003 when Sargent Shriver retired from this position. Tim Shriver's goal was to build Special Olympics into an international movement. Shriver had a background as a leading educator and had worked in substance abuse, violence, dropout, and teen pregnancy prevention. He created the New Haven Public Schools' Social Development Project and cofounded the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the leading research organization in the United States in the field of social and emotional learning.

Shriver helped initiate the Healthy Athletes program, providing health screenings for athletes worldwide and educating professionals about the health needs of persons with intellectual disabilities. He sought corporate sponsorship for Special Olympics World Summer Games in 1999 and was successful in recruiting corporations, individuals, and local, state, and federal governments to donate approximately $38 million. For only the second time in its history, the games made a profit; this time, the profit totaled $2.5 million. The games hosted a record 7,000 athletes from 150 countries, joined by about 57,000 volunteers, coaches, and family members. About 400,000 people were in attendance. As the organization grew, so did its revenue. Special Olympics' gross revenue increased almost 500 percent from 1991 to 2001, while its fund-raising income increased by almost 800 percent. The 2001 World Winter Games in Anchorage, Alaska, drew about 2,500 athletes and raised $17 million.

Recognizing that the games had reached their feasible upper limit in size, Special Olympics leadership began in 2000 to focus on growing Special Olympics regional games set in six locations around the world, thereby giving the one million athletes who participated in these a higher profile. As part of this goal, Special Olympics joined the General Association of International Sports Federations to expand its reach globally and to work cooperatively with other sports organizations. The move was part of an internal reorganization aimed at doubling the number of athletes participating worldwide by 2005; increasing the capabilities of regional staff (including moving athletes into positions of responsibility); creating Special Olympics University for dissemination of training and technical assistance; and increasing the organization's commitment to professional development.

Global Outreach: 2000-01

The first year of the 21st century also marked Special Olympics China Millennium March, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Special Olympics athletes lighting the Special Olympics torch, called the Flame of Hope, at the Great Wall, followed by gala events in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Also during 2000, the first Global Athlete Congress took place in The Hague with 60 athletes from throughout the world discussing the future of the Special Olympics movement.

Worldwide, Special Olympics staff and volunteers kept spreading the organization's message of inclusion and possibility for people with intellectual disabilities. In 2001, Special Olympics presented a Special Report on the Health Status and Needs of Individuals with Mental Retardation to the Senate Committee on Appropriation. It also commissioned a two-year study about how people around the world viewed the roles and capabilities of people with intellectual disabilities in the workplace, the classroom, and in daily social life; the Multinational Study of Attitudes Toward Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities was completed in 2003. In addition, Special Olympics began a major African campaign to reach 100,000 special athletes in Africa by 2005. In 2002, it partnered with Universal Studios and with the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund to host special events to promote its message. In 2003, the World Summer Games took place for the first time outside the United States in Dublin, Ireland.

The inaugural Global Youth Summit, held during the World Winter Games in Anchorage in 2001, was another of the organization's initiatives to increase community involvement in Special Olympics and to spread the word about the capabilities of people with intellectual disabilities. Thirty-four students with and without intellectual disabilities worked in pairs to report on the games. By 2007, 60 Summit participants, ranging in age from 12 to 18, worked with their peers around the world to share the Special Olympics message of inclusion and acceptance through televised forums, webinars, blogs, podcasts, and stories published on web sites and in hometown newspapers. Also in 2001, Unified Reading Teams read and discussed Maria Shriver's book What's Wrong with Timmy? in an effort to educate elementary school students about what it means to have a disability.

Continuing the Drive for Acceptance: 2002-07

A major step forward toward acceptance occurred in 2004 when President George W. Bush signed the Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act into law after it passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously. This act provided ongoing financial support for Special Olympics. Meanwhile, global growth continued through 2006 and 2007 with a series of groundbreaking regional competitions in places such as El Salvador, Italy, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

Timothy Shriver joined Eunice Kennedy Shriver in receiving the Surgeon General's Medallion, for "exemplary service above and beyond the call of duty for making a difference in the lives of our fellow citizens" in 2006. Eunice Shriver had received the medallion in 2001 for "being a leader in the worldwide struggle to enhance the life of individuals with intellectual disabilities." Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona noted the strides that Special Olympics had made in leveling the playing field for people with intellectual disabilities, saying in 2006, "The accomplishments speak for themselves as far as all the good Special Olympics has done in the United States and around the world."

A year later, 7,500 special athletes attended the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, China, comprising the most accomplished of the 2.5 million athletes who competed in 165 countries to get to the games. They were living proof of the fact that Special Olympics is about people who are challenged and who overcome their disabilities.

Further Reading

Bueno, Ana, Special Olympics: The First 25 Years, San Francisco: Foghorn Press, 1994.

Hatch, Adam, "Special Olympics Helps Backers Sell Their Brands," Herald-Sun, April 20, 1999, p. A1.

— Carrie Rothburd

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