Special Olympics athletes train for regional event

POLSON – For some kids, it’s just about having the chance to compete.

According to Kris Kelly, Polson High School’s special education daily living skills teacher, that’s what the Special Olympics are all about.

Eleven of Kelly’s high school special needs students have spent the past few months alternating their Friday afternoons between the Mission Valley Aquatic Center and Sportspage Bowl, gearing up for Western Montana’s Special Olympics in Missoula April 23-25.

The athletes, who can begin competing as young as age 8, can participate in track and field, bowling and swimming. Participation continues into adulthood as well.

Kelly said it helps her students feel like they are a part of something.

“It gives them self-confidence,” she said, leaning over the side of the lap pool’s deep end last Friday. “... It gives them camaraderie. They’re all just having fun.”

Polson junior Paul Nield is entering his eighth year as a Special Olympics athlete.

“It just makes me feel free and relaxed,” Nield said.

The 16-year-old said it’s all about improving for him.

“I like to compete with myself from previous years,” he said.

But you don’t have to be a Special Olympics veteran like Nield to look forward to the games.

Aiden Finley, a 16-year-old sophomore, will be going for the first time.

“I like being in the water,” Finley said of the group’s training.

He’s not worried about finishing first so much as just taking in the experience.

“I like competing, but I don’t have a hard time losing,” he said.

The athletes don’t have to be experts to compete, either, but the high school and the aquatics center’s staff are helping them in that direction.

Program Director Dana Johnston and Raina Stene, a mother and volunteer, have been giving lessons to the high school students. Even the kids who can’t swim well, like Rochelle Farnsworth, are learning.

Farnsworth swims her laps with a life jacket on, but that didn’t stop her from churning out 100 yards of full-speed doggy paddle Friday.

“My arms were getting tired,” Farnsworth said.

Kelly, who has a disabled child of her own, said the recognition from Polson High School has brought the program a long way. She said the school is counting the Special Olympics athletes as lettermen.

“It’s their one time they can have a letterman’s jacket,” Kelly said. “They can really be equal with everyone else.”

She said that events like the Special Olympics give special needs students’ peers a glimpse into their world, as well, especially the teacher’s aides she has. That exposure is good for students on both ends, Kelly said.

“They see them in the hallways, but they don’t really know what we do,” Kelly said. “This gives them a chance to see that.”

Nield said the benefits carry to relationships within the special education program as well.

“It just lets us get to know one another better,” Nield said. “... I like it because of that.”