Special Olympics

[jakewriter82]

now I'm sure I'm going to get dragged through the coals for this one, but I have a sincere question.

How does your paper deal with the Special Olympics?

Is it a sport? Should I take pictures?

This woman came in today and said they were having a special Olympics bowling event tomorrow morning and was wondering if I could come and cover it.

Being that there isn't a whole lot going on the next few days, I agreed to go.
I'm bringing my camera, but I'm feeling a little weird about shooting down-syndrome kids bowling and putting it on the sports page.

Is it a good idea to cover this?
Obviously covering it like a normal bowling event isn't very realistic, so I'm thinking of writing a feature on it....But I dunno. I'd rather just go volunteer than write a story on them.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

We don't deal with SO.

It's a great and worthy institution, but I don't see how you can do gamers on it. Everybody gets a medal. At a lot of their events, they don't even keep score.

If you do anything, shoot some photos and do some interviews for a Sunday feature.

 

[Freelance Hack]

Agreed. Special Olympics is really just feature material.

Don't write for the melodrama, though.

 

[jakewriter82]

Ugh.
I'd write a feature on it, but I don't have much of an angle yet.
I don't want to go at it saying,
"Little Johnny was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome recently, but he can still participate in sports thanks to the special olympics where everyone wins."

What other kind of feature angle could there be?

 

[SoSueMe]

I had a Special Olympics basketball qualifying tourney in my town. We just did a feature on the local "team" and "athletes."

It worked out because the locals here were actually invited to a big, major metropolis to teach people there how to get programs like this off the ground. The locals are really good and respected.

YOU MUST FIND AN ANGLE. That's the bottom line.

 

[chester]

Ugh.
I'd write a feature on it, but I don't have much of an angle yet.
I don't want to go at it saying,
"Little Johnny was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome recently, but he can still participate in sports thanks to the special olympics where everyone wins."

What other kind of feature angle could there be?

There's actually plenty of personal angles you can take. Don't look at it so much from the sports perspective as much as from the personal perspective.

 

[SuperflySnuka]

There's several feature angles:

What's it like for the parents who pretty much only get to watch their kids compete at special olympics events?
What's it like for the owners of the bowling alley who lose the revenue but do a great deed?
What's it like for the volunteers who spend their time and effort to help kids achieve a sense of worth that is scarcely attained by able-bodied people.

Without getting too "Hallmark Movie of the Week" on us, I'm sure you could spin something out of this. Think of it this way: It's a slow week, you need **** to fill, and people will read it.

However you choose to go - good luck...

 

[SF_Express]

As a little feature one-off, photo or feature, no big deal.

Don't get roped into results, though. It's a participation deal for most.

 

[txsportsscribe]

this was the first year in 5 years that i didn't cover the local special olympics track meet and i think i missed out. is it sports? no but that shouldn't stop you from finding a place somewhere in the paper for a once a year thing. i always did a photo essay that worked out well. lots of emotion in those faces.

 

[Tom Petty]

now I'm sure I'm going to get dragged through the coals for this one, but I have a sincere question.

How does your paper deal with the Special Olympics?

Is it a sport? Should I take pictures?

This woman came in today and said they were having a special Olympics bowling event tomorrow morning and was wondering if I could come and cover it.

Being that there isn't a whole lot going on the next few days, I agreed to go.
I'm bringing my camera, but I'm feeling a little weird about shooting down-syndrome kids bowling and putting it on the sports page.

Is it a good idea to cover this?
Obviously covering it like a normal bowling event isn't very realistic, so I'm thinking of writing a feature on it....But I dunno. I'd rather just go volunteer than write a story on them.

community news chief, community news.

 

[JD Canon]

i'm sure once you go, you'll meet someone who will inspire you to write about them.

maybe if you just go into it with the mindset that you're only going to run a standalone photo, it will make it easier to just talk to a lot of people without having to worry about getting quotes or finding the angle.

and the more you get to know the people participating — they're not all kids — the easier it will be to report. look at it as one of those "everyone has a story" things. you don't just have to focus on the athletics.

 

[Tom Petty]

i'm sure once you go, you'll meet someone who will inspire you to write about them.

maybe if you just go into it with the mindset that you're only going to run a standalone photo, it will make it easier to just talk to a lot of people without having to worry about getting quotes or finding the angle.

and the more you get to know the people participating — they're not all kids — the easier it will be to report. look at it as one of those "everyone has a story" things. you don't just have to focus on the athletics.

which makes it community news.

 

[Tom Petty]

i'm sure once you go, you'll meet someone who will inspire you to write about them.

maybe if you just go into it with the mindset that you're only going to run a standalone photo, it will make it easier to just talk to a lot of people without having to worry about getting quotes or finding the angle.

and the more you get to know the people participating — they're not all kids — the easier it will be to report. look at it as one of those "everyone has a story" things. you don't just have to focus on the athletics.

btw - hows that crappy paper you used to work for in calif. progressing? still smell like sewage there?

 

[cranberry]

If you do anything, shoot some photos and do some interviews for a Sunday feature.

It's a wonderful photographic event. Treat it as such.

 

[ColbertNation]

I wrote some SO features a few years back. Some of the stories were pretty cool, but by the time I got to the third or fourth kid, I realized that a lot of the stories were the same, and it began to get really repetitive. I agree with Cranberry, though. You could probably get a great photo page out of it.

 

[BNWriter]

I am going to be in the minority for what I will say here, but I do not care, as I have written on Special Olympics events (State Bowling Tourney, State Basketball tourney, State Summer Games) in two states for over 20 years, so I am comfortable with what I am about to explain.

The parents and friends of the athletes treat events their Special Olympics participant in like any other state playoff or contest, because, as one mother told me, "It is (Junior's) chance to experience a playoff (or as in basketball, his team's March Madness.").

From my perspective and those of the families who go to watch their athlete, it *is* sports as far as they are concerned.

That's even though the stories focus mostly on human features-type content.

I understand that it *really* isn't the perview of the sports dept. -- for whatever reason -- to cover SO events. That does not bother me and it is understandable from a sports writer's POV.

But, to say that SO is *not* sports is inaccurate and simply not true.

Ask any of my editors who ask me to return with "as many stats as possible." They have asked that of me and I have given it to them. And trust me, there are plenty of stats.

SO just does not emphasize or dwell on the score or who scored how many or had however many rebounds. Most of the stories can show how Johnny or June has grown as a person despite their condition and how SO participation has helped them learn new skills -- sometimes being able to go from learning how to play basketball to being able to carry their ability to learn further so that they can contribute to society productively as employees, mostly part-time at a local business, earning their own keep. They are able to do this because they have taken to learning about something that makes them productive in society.

Yes, it is community news. Yes, it is an instant photo-op. But it is also writing about people's lives. Many of these folks (parents, coaches, the athletes themselves) are more than happy to talk about what benefit their child has gotten out of being an SO athlete.

Always happy to find a new angle now and again but if you cover these things regularly like I do, they get easier and easier. Good luck.

 

[CU_Buffalo_Gal]

I'll bet a lot of the families of the competitors are sports fans... otherwise many of them probably wouldn't be involved. So they would probably really appreciate a feature on the sports page. Even if it wasn't a big thing. For some reason, I'm thinking about that story a few months back about the autistic kid who made it into the basketball game and then started draining 3s. I remember Jim Rome interviewed the coach and afterwards, fathers wrote in and said how much that story affected them because they also have autistic kids.

This bowling event may be too small a hook, but if you are looking for a larger Special Olympics sports tie-in, Aldis Berzins, who was a starter for the U.S. men's volleyball team when they won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, is now the Director of Information Technologies for Special Olympics in Washington DC. He has an interesting story.

Just a thought... :)

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Find out if they liked this movie:

 

[standman]

Lean on the public relations people hard. They can push you toward some good stories although if you keep your eyes and ears open you should be able to run into tons of feature angles. The participants range from kids to adults so don't refer to the competitors as kids.

Some of the participants fuction well enough that you can get a quote you can use. Don't worry about the results or the sport, if you can capture the spirit of the event in a feature you will do just fine. The competitors and coaches work hard and for the most part the participants follow the same rules as everybody else.

The SO folks used to have a guide of how to write about this so you don't Imus yourself or an editor out of a job. For every arrogant kid or parent you've had to deal with in the past, you'll feel a lot better once you're through with the event.

 

[Cadet]

Depending on the sport, there are opportunities for advancement. See if anyone from the local event will be competing at the state or national level. I do know they are doing a SO "world games" in Beijing before the Olympics.

Also, the participants have varying levels of disability and some may make a great interview.