TABLE OF CONTENTS FRONT PAGE NEXT ARTICLE PREVIOUS ARTICLE
Editor's note: Hundreds of Carolina employees volunteered at the 1999 Special Olympics World Games, held in part on campus June 26 - July 4. This story takes a look at the experiences of a few of them.
Many landmarks grace the Carolina campus. The Old Well. The Bell Tower. The
Davie Poplar.
But for a 1999 Special Olympics World Games athlete from Honduras, none of
these postcard standbys could compete with what hung from the Dean E. Smith
Center rafters.
"He asked me in Spanish, `Is this where Michael Jordan is from?,' and I said,
`You betcha,'" said Kathleen Gray, a Carolina employee who volunteered as the
Games' assistant competition manager for basketball. "I showed him the jersey,
and he was just awed."
And in their own way, the Special Olympics athletes awed Gray and the other
Carolina volunteers as much as one of Michael's trademark, tongue-wagging
slams.
"It's incredible. It's inspirational. Frankly, I came home on Sunday and
thought, `Oh my God, I've found a new career,'" said Gray, a senior research
associate in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. "The
athletes are so incredibly motivated."
Take the Irish girl, unable to play for the basketball team because of her
disability, but who shot sure as former Tar Heel Charlotte Smith in an
individual skills competition.
"So you see this person who struggles just to walk and to run, but then she
has this super accuracy with shots from the floor," Gray said.
Such results only come from many hours spent laboring in the gym, dedication
all the more impressive considering that the athletes have more to overcome,
Gray said: "It's a message we're always told, but you see it in these athletes
-- you practice, you persevere, you succeed."
And like the athletes, the 35,000 volunteers who helped put on the Games
worked plenty hard. Gray turned in as many as 14 hours a day, with one shift
running from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
She and the basketball competition manager oversaw a team of 20 volunteers,
who did everything from interpreting the basketball rules book -- published
only in English -- for foreign coaches to running the game clock to helping
athletes get back and forth from the locker rooms.
But the effort was well worth it, said Gray, who'd had no basketball
experience except for "being a fan."
"I had no idea of the time demands, or the rewards," she said.
International understanding
Grant Wolslagel found his volunteer experience equally rewarding.
"It makes me feel proud, like I'm really doing something for someone else,
being part of a very worthwhile event," he said.
Chair of the residence status committee when he's punching the clock for
Carolina, Wolslagel served as an "athlete escort" for the Games' aquatic
competition in Koury Natatorium.
He walked swimmers to pool side for their events and took them to the awards
area afterward, all the while making sure they had everything they needed --
needs that ranged from having the proper clothing to being in the correct
starting lane.
Like any athletes before a big event, the swimmers had butterflies, Wolslagel
said, and he took pains to ease their nerves by asking everyday questions --
their ages, hometowns and countries, whether they had brothers or sisters.
Wolslagel, who swam for his junior and senior high school teams and even
competed in the Junior Olympics, also asked about training habits. The answers
impressed him.
"They take it very seriously," he said. "They train all the time."
Wolslagel could appreciate the swimmers' efforts, especially in the more
demanding races such as the 200 meter individual relay.
"Those are tough events," he said. "I swam those when I was younger, and I'm
very impressed by the competitors' athleticism."
But it wasn't just what he saw in the water that touched Wolslagel, who forged
friendships with his charges.
"I received a lot of high fives after the race or at the awards ceremony, a
few little pecks on the cheek and several requests to hold my hand as we would
go from one staging area to another or to and from the races," he said after
the Games.
Wolslagel said coaches and athletes' families also thanked him for taking care
of their athletes, sons and daughters. It was that kind of spirit that soon had
Wolslagel abandoning any patriotic notions.
"I felt proud of all the athletes for all the hard work and dedication each
had put into getting to this point in their lives," he said. "I realized at one
point I was not necessarily cheering for an American athlete, but for `my
athlete' who I was escorting -- no matter what country he or she was from --
and proud of them no matter what happened in the race."
Wolslagel said that while all the swimmers wanted to win, they also showed
true sportsmanship -- wishing each other well before races and shaking hands
afterward. He took pride -- and found hope -- in that.
"I was part of celebrating a positive attitude with these athletes, an
attitude that could only help to provide a better worldwide understanding of
how much all of us are really more the same than not, share the same likes and
dislikes, and the same fears of failure and the same wonderful joy and
excitement of a successful competition," Wolslagel said.
Hard work by all
Audrey Heining-Boynton found hope in the Games as well, inspired not just by
the athletes but by the dedication displayed by the thousands of volunteers who
made the Games possible.
The professor of education and Romance languages was one of three volunteer
language services managers for events at Carolina who, working out of temporary
quarters in Kenan Fieldhouse, lined up interpreters for teams representing some
20 languages.
She said volunteer interpreters routinely worked extra shifts because they
found the Special Olympics spirit so moving.
"At least for me, that's renewed my faith in humankind," Heining-Boynton
said.
The professor devoted quite a bit of time to the event herself -- including
three days from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. But she didn't mind the long hours.
"The main thing is that all of us know we're providing a service that's very
appreciated," she said. "It makes you feel like you're doing something very
worthwhile."
Glynis Cowell, director of the Spanish Language Program in the Department of
Romance Languages and one of the other volunteer language services managers,
had been a "hugger" at a regional Special Olympics event. That experience
primed her for the World Games.
"Once you work with Special Olympics, you're hooked," she said. "You will go
back. You will do it again."
No doubt many of her Carolina colleagues agree.
To UNC-CH Home Page