Every year, disabled members of the community lace up their running shoes and adjust their goggles after hours of practice to compete in the Special Olympics, an event held at USU once a year with competitors from all over the state. This is the last year USU will host the state Olympics; however, they will be held in other locations.

The USU Special Olympics will be cut due to budget and an overlap in similar events organized throughout the state.

The events will begin Saturday at 9:30 a.m. in the HPER Building and Nelson Fieldhouse, where competitors will challenge their opponents in swimming, basketball and dead lifting. The participants are required to be at least 8 years of age and diagnosed by a medical professional to have some type of disability, said Erin Whyte, USU’s Special Olympics program director. Volunteers will be accepted all day and must report to the HPER Building, where they will be assigned to take statistics for basketball games, time swimmers, distribute lunch and give out awards.

“I love to see athletes with tons of medals around their neck and be totally excited saying, ‘Look what I did.’ It really empowers them,” Whyte said.

All participants are given awards for their outstanding efforts, Whyte said. She said some of the athletes cannot do more than float across the pool, so they have their coaches help them across. In Saturday’s basketball tournament, each disabled athlete will have a close friend or family member as a team member, she said.

Each athlete must train for 20 hours to qualify for the Special Olympics under the direction of Tyler Huskinson’s assistant coaches. Huskinson is the head of delegation for Utah’s Special Olympics program for Cache Valley. He goes in between all of the training to support the athletes any way he can.

Huskinson said their training involves the same type of activities any Olympian would do in a regular workout. The Special Olympics trainees start by taking a few laps around the gym, stretch and progress into more strength training and cardio. Huskinson said he expects the same thing out of his athletes as any other coach: improving individually and improving as a team. A total of 111 disabled athletes are involved in USU’s Special Olympics.

“We work with all different levels of ability and skill. We have enough volunteers to divide practice up into those skill levels,” Huskinson said.

Huskinson’s passion for Special Olympics began when he was 11 years old, supporting his slightly autistic brother in his athletic endeavors. After attending many of these events, Huskinson said he cannot part with it even though his brother is no longer involved. He began training athletes at age 14 and is now 23. Training the athletes, he said, has helped him gain an appreciation for every person, disabled or not. Though he does not ignore his athletes disabilities, he can look past them because of his experience working with the disabled. Every year, Huskinson said he gets the better end of the deal. The disabled people he works with give him more than he can give them, he said.

“It’s (Special Olympics) addicting; it’s a drug. It’s like eating Pringles: once you pop, you can’t stop,” he said.

This year, the Special Olympics is themed the “7 Wonders of the World” and is more than just sporting events. In between the events, the athletes have the opportunity to browse through “Olympic Town,” stopping at different stations to get their passport stamped, Whyte said. When they have a stamp from every station they turn the passport in and are entered in a raffle to win gift cards from Sizzler’s, Old Navy and others. The grand prize winner will receive a one-night stay at Beaver Creek Inn.

When the day comes to a close, the competitors are usually exhausted, Whyte said. The last project Whyte is working on is a dance and dinner held at 5:30 p.m. in the Nelson Fieldhouse.

Huskinsons said, “They live for (Special Olympics). It’s their thing and they absolutely love it. You can just see them get really excited for it. They love showing off their talent and they get a big kick out of it.”

– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu