Special Honor For A Special Olympics Coach

By Nancy K. Crevier

Newtown resident and boys’ track coach for Bethel High School Yvonne Grimes has been selected as one of two track officials in the United States to officiate at the October Special Olympics World Games in Shanghai, China. Ms Grimes will leave for China on September 29 for the two-week event that brings together mentally challenged athletes from all over the world.

“I’ve been a runner for years,” Ms Grimes said, who has coached track since the late 1980s. It was while she was teaching economics at Wilton High School and coaching track there, though, that she became involved with Special Olympics. “Nick Zeoli, the athletic director at Wilton at the time, asked me to spend a few hours a week with some special needs athletes.”

She has been coaching Special Olympics since 1990, a commitment that has grown from a few hours a week to one that now involves many hours a month and the involvement of her husband, Kevin, and their five children, Brian, 15, Elizabeth, 13, Emily, 11, Meghan, 10, and Dwyer, 7.

As well as coaching, Ms Grimes is certification chairperson and trains all of the track and field coaches in the state for Special Olympics, and has served as director of the unified coaching team for 17 years. The unified coaching team, Ms Grimes explained, matches nonspecial needs athletes with special needs athletes.

Her husband coaches marathon runners in Connecticut, and four of her five children are members of the unified team, working with a special needs athlete with whom they have been paired. “My kids have grown up playing in the sand pit,” said Ms Grimes, who along with her husband also runs a Bethel Parks and Recreation track program at Bethel High School every Wednesday evening in July. It is just one more track and field event that brings the family together, she said, and allows her to spread her love of track to others in the greater Danbury area.

Ms Grimes’ training as an official with USA Track and Field, and further training to familiarize her with officiating at Special Olympics, has taken her to events all over the country, and as far away as Ireland. In 2005, Ms Grimes was inducted into the Special Olympics Hall of Fame, and into the Shriver Society this past year.

She is thrilled to have been selected to officiate at the Shanghai World Games, and while visiting China will be an entirely new experience for her, this will make the fourth time that she has officiated for World Games.

“I officiated at the World Games in Minneapolis in 1991, the New Haven World Games in 1995, and most recently I went to Ireland for the 2003 Special Olympics World Games,” Ms Grimes said.

Outside of the many special needs athletes she has coached since 1990, Ms Grimes does not have a personal connection to Special Olympics. “When we got involved in Special Olympics it became a family event. It is our family time together. I think that we get more out of our association with Special Olympics than the athletes get from us. It helps us to appreciate our family and we are doing good for others,” she said.

The World Games themselves are “tremendous,” said Ms Grimes. “There are teams from all over the world and you leave politics and turmoil aside. It is just pure competition. There is no goal except to compete well. ”

Even on the state level, though, said Ms Grimes, Special Olympics is huge.

“Connecticut has one of the most involved Special Olympics programs in not just the country, but the world,” she said. She is very proud that three of the runners she has coached will be running in the marathon when the Shangai World Games open on October 4.

She has not yet been assigned her responsibilities for the Shanghai event, but has applied to be part of the automatic timing or to do clerking, which involves checking in all of the athletes and making sure everything is in order prior to the races and competitions.

“I don’t actually know a lot yet, beyond having the plane ticket. I don’t know yet where I’ll be staying, but they have had me send in the sizes for my uniforms. Except for the shoes, the sizing was in Chinese sizes, so I hope it all fits. I think I’ll probably pack a needle and thread, just in case,” Ms Grimes laughed. What worries her more than what happens once she gets to Shanghai is what will be happening here at home. “Leaving my family and scheduling my time away has been the hardest thing so far. With five kids, it takes a lot of scheduling.” Her husband, who has traveled to other World Games with her, will not accompany her this time, so it is with the confidence that he will keep the home fires burning that she will leave for China.

She is certain that the Shanghai World Games will be as uplifting as every other Special Olympics event she has attended.

“It is such a wonderful opportunity for athletes who are mentally challenged and sometimes physically challenged, as well, to compete in fair competitions,” she said. “Their effort is so pure and meaningful. You laugh and cry every day.”