A Special Weekend

Special Olympics went off last weekend without any major hitches. Saturday was a gorgeous day. Here's a picture of the Parade Grounds at Fort Lewis. They were designed so that, looking straight down the lawn, you will see Mt. Rainier in the distance. It is, in my opinion, the best place on earth for an event like this. The Army is fantastic in helping with the set up, opporation, and take down. Without their help, it wouldn't happen, and I think it wouldn't be as much fun as it is.

Quick run down on how big this event is. There were ten fields all with games being played on them at the same time. Each time has at least 5 players. So you're looking at one hundred athletes all playing soccer at the same time! Add to that the other teams that aren't playing, and you're looking at close to a thousand or more athletes alone, not to mention all the support staff and friends and family. The estimates I heard were around 20,000 people all told were there at the base for the weekend! That's big.

So my small job was to asssign referees to officiate the games. The soccer venue is unique, in that we recruit officials who are certified (they make money doing this) to volunteer their time. I'm still amazed every year at the response I get. Saturday, I had twenty referees! That's more than I knew what to do with. Here I am trying to figure out where to put them. It was a dilema I could live with. I didn't get to ref a single game that day. No big deal, tomorrow was still to come.

















And here are some of the referees themselves, taking a break from their hard work.












Sunday, I started out short on refs. But everything worked out well. I could do games (here's a picture of me coming off a game), and the number of games wasn't nearly as great. So, all in all, it was a great weekend! Here are some pictures of the Special Olympics athletes in action. Some of these guys are good (and I'm not just comparing them to Special Olympics, I'm saying some of these guys are good period).































I can't wait until next year when we do this all over again!