It’s Something Special : For the Retarded, a Chance to Be in Their Own Olympics Leads to Memorable Day of Togetherness, Skill and Pride

At the end of the runway, at the very edge of the asphalt, an athlete peers into the distance, confidently contemplating his long jump. “Which way?” he suddenly thinks to ask.

In the infield, a team of four athletes erupts with the regular timing of geysers, leaping into the air with a spontaneous enthusiasm--high fives all around--and collapsing to the ground, shaking. The four lie still for a minute or two and then, for no apparent reason, leap once more into the air, aquiver with a nameless anticipation.

Down the track, meanwhile, comes a parade of wheelchairs. Some are propelled correctly and quickly. Some are propelled backward, some even sideways. One, you notice, goes a little in each direction. The athlete uses just one arm, switching it from wheel to wheel, zig-zagging from lane to lane, a half-wheel turn at a time.

There is a lot to see at a Special Olympics, like what an amazing number of things can go wrong in our creation. That’s a first impression and certainly an enduring one when dealing with people that, by definition, have IQs of 70 or lower, who are at least mentally retarded, some profoundly so, and in many cases handicapped physically besides. The circuitry is incomplete, the chemistry flawed; they were not lucky.

Still, this annual event, a qualifier that can take an athlete right on to an international Olympics, and conducted at Bell High School Saturday, bears inspection and consideration and is worth the initial shock, the indignity at some chromosomal carelessness. There is a curious happiness here, believe it or not, that does not seem available at all the other sports venues of the day.

Anyway, what were those four kids so excited about?

Actually, you do not call them kids because, in a large number of cases, they are not. All they need, by way of qualification, to compete in a Special Olympics is the classification of trainable mental retardation --or, mentally handicapped. The age limits, officially, are 8 to 80 and, upon a closer look, you do discover a lot of kids who are not kids.

“They can really trick you,” says one of the volunteers from the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce. “You get close to one of those 18-year-olds and suddenly they’re

40. Maybe because they have fewer worries.”

They are not kids, then, they are athletes, some of them quite good, although that is beside the point. As an announcer booms out the winners in events from Frisbee to pentathlon, it is passionately explained that as these are not just athletes, this is not just a sports event.

“This is a chance for parents, community to see these people that aren’t regular, that aren’t considered normal,” says Jerome Woods, a physical education instructor at Lanterman High School. “And it’s a chance for these people to be normal, to be together at one time, to see their peers. It’s a day when everybody is capable, everybody is special.”

Although there are ribbons for first, second and third, there is a larger emphasis on participation than competition. In fact, each athlete is presented a medal during the so-called Friendship Ceremony, in which the 340 athletes, their coaches and the volunteers form a circle that consumes half a football field. And that medal, so easily earned, is far more impressive than the ribbons.

And besides the ribbons and medals, there are pairs of arms. “They need that hugging,” Woods says. “Some, they don’t even know what affection is, can’t name it. But here they get it.”

“For some, too,” Woods says, “the thing isn’t winning. Some have never even tried before. That’s the thing.”

Martine Espino, “21 going on 22,” is the big gun in the pentathlon, as in almost all his endeavors. He proudly ticks off, at a subtle hint from a teacher, his non-sports achievements as well. “I’m gifted in five tactics,” he says. “I’m bilingual, I dance, I’ve been singing for six years. I got two plaques for singing ‘Hey Jude’ ”

He is, moreover, holding a regular job at the 32nd Street Market near USC and approaching an independence many of his peers can only dream about. “The job makes me feel good,” he says. “I want their respect and I want them to have confidence in me. I want my freedom and I know what it takes.”

“Yeah, but what about school,” the teacher asks.

“That’s the main thing, of course,” he says, laughing, having learned one thing for sure--when to say things teachers want to hear. “Spelling and reading, my two main goals. Once I accomplish those. . . . “

In fact, Martine Espino, who would appear to be a ringer, physically and mentally, is not quite ready for the world beyond the Parks Manor Board and Care. He cannot read one word, not the simplest word.

Still, there is the pentathlon and a hundred other things, helping other athletes, for example, limp to their events, as he will do all day. “I feel good about myself,” he says.

There are competitions all around you, conducted at various skill levels. Just as there is a spirited high jump, with much kibitzing among contestants, so is there at the same time a Frisbee toss in which forward direction is all that can be hoped for. Just as there is one very serious long-jump competition, so is there one in which the comic interruption of an impromptu

cartwheel into the pit is taken for granted.

And just as there is a 100-meter race between three very fast and very evenly matched boys, so is there a race over the same distance by girls so disabled, and variously so, that the race takes an eternity. Still, there is a pair of arms on the other side of the finish line for each of the girls.

In the infield, amid all this action, Charles Griego is taking pictures of his son, Steve, 28, who has so far been pinned with ribbons for the 50-meter race and the standing broad jump. “Show me how you ran,” the father says, and Steve sticks his chin out and resolutely runs 15 yards. “Now back,” the father instructs when it

appears that Steve might very well run off the landscape.

Steve has lived at the Mid Cities Assn. for eight years. He puts knives and forks in plastic containers in the workshop there. “He is not capable of doing much,” his father admits. “He can’t speak too well, and his motor development isn’t too good. He can’t read, but he can write his first name. And he has a memory like an elephant.”

As his father speaks, Steve collars all passers-by, many of his teammates and coaches, to introduce them to his parents. “My mom,” he says, taking their hand and putting it into his mother’s hand. His manners are monumental. He is an organism of uncompromised affection, a blinding innocence. Told to retire to the bench with the rest of his teammates, he gives each parent a soft hug and walks backward so as not to lose sight of them.

“He looks forward to this. He didn’t even want to come home last weekend, he wanted to prepare for it so much,” Charles Griego says. He shoots some more pictures. “I’ll get these pictures developed and, in a year or so, he’ll go over them, look at them for hours and remember every particular of them.”

The father has a use for them, too. “I’ve got some others in my office, with the ribbons he won for me, for us,” he says, articulating the thought you secretly wanted to discover in these games. You do not, finally, see all this incomplete circuity and flawed chemistry and think yourself lucky; you see it and think them, their parents and all who help them lucky. “We’re awful proud of him,” says Charles Griego, and he snaps off another roll.