WESTWOOD : Fund-Raiser Gives Boost to Special Olympics

The California Special Olympics raised $34,000 at a silent auction and benefit performance of the play “Coaches” at UCLA Saturday night.

The proceeds will help fund the 1994 Summer Games in California, which will be held at a dozen Westwood venues June 24-26.

The games draw 2,500 mentally handicapped athletes 8 and older who compete in eight sports, including tennis, gymnastics, cycling and basketball.

At the fund-raiser Friday, attended by about 300 people, California Special Olympics gave Distinguished Volunteer Service Awards to Georgiana Rae, a special education teacher in the Garden Grove Unified School District, and Marc Kelly, a physical education teacher at Lanterman High School, a special education facility in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Both are coaches in the Special Olympics.

The play, written by Buddy Farmer, celebrates the lives, triumphs and challenges of three of football’s greatest coaches: Bear Bryant, Vince Lombardi and Knute Rockne.

“It was a terrific match for us,” said Greg Bingham, executive director of the California Special Olympics. “The play celebrates the inspiration coaches provide their players. Our motto is: Training for life is what Special Olympics is all about.”

Lombardi, played by John Pinero, delivers his philosophy during a locker room talk.

“Young man,” he tells the squad, “somewhere deep down inside you is a burning desire to excel. If you don’t believe that then pack your bags. . . . But if you leave with the knowledge that you didn’t give it every ounce of strength in your body to do your best, then you will quit on everything you do in life.”

Paul Hoffman, 33, of Fullerton, who has represented California and the United States at international and national Special Olympics, said Lombardi’s message of achievement and pride mirrors the Special Olympics creed.

“I would do anything for this program, because the Special Olympics has given me the confidence to be myself and the chance to prove to other people that . . . the mentally retarded can do what anyone else can do.”

Hoffman, who works as an equipment manager at Troy High School in Fullerton, was named Most Inspirational Athlete at the 1993 statewide games.