Winners at Game of Life : There Are No Losers at State Special Olympics

For two days, Sandy Moss, a contestant in the California Special Olympics summer games, impatiently grilled his coaches about the details of his upcoming event.

“What are we waiting for?” asked the 40-year-old San Jose man, whose coach, Judy Kupfer, described him as mentally retarded.

Moss was eager to start the 50-meter race on Saturday, the first of two days of competition on the UCLA campus. And so were more than 2,000 other disabled athletes who came from across the state to compete in sports ranging from weightlifting to basketball.

On Saturday, several thousand spectators cheered on athletes while rap music blared. When not competing, the athletes spent much of the day gathered in small groups around the campus, becoming acquainted and preparing for the coming competition.

Moss, who suffers from seizures, had every intention of winning his race. He ended up finishing last, but in the Special Olympics, contestants and organizers said, there are no losers.

“They are all winners if you ask me,” said Jeanne Valvo, a Special Olympics board member. “I look at these athletes and then I look at the general population. And then I wonder who is retarded.”

Athletes came from 65 regions throughout the state. Each region holds competition in the spring to determine who goes to the summer games, said Rafer Johnson, president of the state Special Olympics.

Johnson, a former Olympic gold medalist and one of the originators of the state’s Special Olympics, said the year-round program gives disabled athletes a chance to mature.

“Before the Special Olympics, there was little opportunity for handicapped people as far as athletics were concerned,” Johnson said. “Now they look forward to all the Special Olympics events.”

Saturday marked the first time that 18-year-old Patrick Tweedie had been able to qualify for the state event. Tweedie, an 11th grader at West Los Angeles Baptist High School, has Down’s syndrome. But the muscular 150-pound youth was able to bench-press 105 pounds in the power-lifting contest.

“The Special Olympics have given Patrick a sense of accomplishment and improved his self-esteem,” said Betty Tweedie, his mother. “He’s spent a lot of time practicing for today and this gives him a chance to develop physically as well. It gives him a sense of doing the best he can.”

On Friday, a day of pregame events capped by an evening torchlight ceremony, spectators and athletes gathered for a series of promotional events that organizers say reflect the group’s increased media sophistication.

Among a group of celebrities who appeared at the games was actor Dick Sargent, who played a lead role on the “Bewitched” television situation comedy series in the 1960s. Sargent has been coming to the Special Olympics for the last 20 years.

“The Special Olympics have been a consistent joy in my life, even more than my acting career,” Sargent said.

While the actor posed for pictures with spectators and assisted the Olympics staff, the real stars of the event were hard at work training for the events they had prepared for all year long.

More than a million disabled children and adults participate each year in Special Olympics programs across the United States and in more than 70 countries. Today’s competition begins at 8 a.m. and continues until 3 p.m.