Rarely, if ever, have I had the challenge of speaking to business school students, faculty and friends so experienced and successful in all the details of the Special Olympics Movement. What can I talk about that you don’t already know? What news can I bring to you? Shouldn’t I be listening to you, getting new ideas from you, rather than lecturing to you?
The answer to all those questions may well be, “Yes, Shriver, listen to the business school students and faculty. Don’t try to lecture them! They know as much or more than you about coaching, training, competing, with and for Special Olympics athletes…”
But, in self-defense, I think I may have one or two things to say which may be news to you, encouraging, mysterious news, news of value for the next century, maybe. So bear with me, please. Let’s see what happens next.
Ten days ago I spent two weeks in Syria and Iran, two Muslim nations, fifty and sixty degrees east of the Greenwich, Zero Meridian. Syria has only sixteen million inhabitants, Iran sixty-three million. Iran geographically is as large as France, Syria is much smaller, about the size of our state of Oklahoma. Both of these nations trace their histories back to 5,000 or 6,000 B.C. Yes, they are both 8,000 or 9,000 years old! Syria is already a member of Special Olympics dating back five years. But Iran is only now beginning to participate in our Movement. They will be sending eight to eighteen athletes to our Worldwide Games in North Carolina, but they will not be a fully-qualified member state till later this year. In 1999 Iran will probably become a full-fledged national participant in The Special Olympics Movement. Like Cuba, Iran will be fully accredited and a member of Special Olympics, even though Iran has no diplomatic or financial relationships with our nation! Our Government will allow Iranians to come into our country for our Worldwide Games. They will not be denied entrance. Their participation shows that Special Olympics transcends politics, or if you prefer, Special Olympics is beneath politics. Why? Because we are the only athletic program focuses on “the least of our brethren”. We prove that the USA is “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all…”
You know, of course, that we are the only worldwide athletic program open to all mentally handicapped athletes of all abilities! We are the only athletic competition with such an outlook and such outreach. We transcend the basic objective of all other competitive sports which seek to find and publicize only those athletes at the very top athletically of their sports! Instead of one, final 100 meter dash with the world’s fastest eight runners, as in the traditional Olympic Games, we have 55, 100 meter dashes in our 1995 World Wide Games.
The best times in the fastest group of runners were 11.77 to 12.44 seconds. In the last group of one hundred meter runners, the winning time was 24.54 seconds! The winners in that slowest of the 100 meter dashes receives the same awards, the same medals as those who competed in the fastest group of all!
In one sentence, Special Olympics is the only, worldwide sports organization which seeks to enlist and then bestow awards on all of our competitors at all levels of ability!
Why do we do this? We do so because we use sports to train and encourage all men and women with mental retardation. Why? Because we know that all persons with mental retardation have been neglected and rejected for 10,000 years! Right now, there are 170,000,000 persons with mental retardation on earth. Until Special Olympics was invented in 1968 no sports program, in fact no other program, for all these human beings existed! Thousands with mental retardation were enclosed in the state and private institutions right here in the USA. They were hidden. They were rejected. No one knew of anything capable of helping them toward a normal life. Even today thousands with mental retardation are still stymied at very low levels, but thousands more have been successfully resuscitated, so to speak, and now are accepted in normal living conditions and in many jobs.
All of you here today have assisted, through your MBA Games, substantially in this transformation of our society; but we have days and miles to go before we reach all, or nearly all, of that huge number of 170,000,000 persons with mental retardation now on earth!
Special Olympics now operates in 171 countries. More than one million athletes participate. In just 30 years we have become the largest private sports philanthropy in the world! We continue to grow and grow. By the year 2001, the first year of the next century, Special Olympics will probably have 2,000,000 athletes and 3,000,00 volunteers!
We have had to change the organizational structure of our worldwide enterprise. For example, we have just created Special Olympics Europe-Eurasia, an entity with its own full-time staff and its own Board of Advisers. We have 50 European-Eurasian nations in that one entity! Those 50 European nations have never been united in any one enterprise! All of those countries in the old days with their famous and infamous leaders, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin, the Kaisers of Germany, the Czars of Russia, killed more people than the total population of the United States today. Now they are all united in the Special Olympics Movement! No military or political leader has ever accomplished that miracle with them!
We are not only changing the lives of the Special Olympics athletes. We are altering the lives, perceptions and world views of everyone around them. List to some of these business executives:
“The worldwide reach of Special Olympics makes the program a perfect match for the global Coca-Cola system! Because it is truly grassroots, Special Olympics allows our bottlers the opportunity to become involved on a local level, and give something back to the communities in which we do business”.
That’s Stu Cross, VP Corporate Marketing and Director, Worldwide Sports, Coca-Cola the head of P&G. “It’s not only good business for our company and our customers, but more importantly, our relationship with Special Olympics has benefited some very special people”.
Dollar Rent a Car: “Thanks to our cause-related marketing with Special Olympics, our travel agency business increases 50% over our normal growth! That’s incredible in comparison to our already high overall business increase.” Brian Baker, Executive Director of Marketing
Or: Bob Fiondella, CEO of Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Comapny, “Our employees were so satisfied with their Special Olympics experience that they gave much more of themselves to their jobs. A real sense of pride in the organization began to build. We have become much for effective as an organization through our experience with Special Olympics. We have truly become one organization” Everywhere!
Or listen to this: “I’m a member of Team Otis in support of Special Olympic programs throughout the world. Within our company, Team Otis has come to represent the best of class in teamwork, innovation, productivity and worldwide volunteerism.” Steve Page, President and CEO of Otis Elevator Company.
“Team Otis” was started by J.P. van Rooy who, after retiring from Otis became President of Special Olympics Europe-Eurasia! Launched in June of 1994, Team Otis now have more than 4,000 Otis employees in nearly 40 countries. More than 150 Team Otis participants from 8 states and 12 countries will be volunteering at the 1999 Special Olympic World Games in North Carolina. More than one dozen Otis Elevator “managers” currently serve on Special Olympics Boards of Directors in countries throughout the world!
I hope that as future business leasers you will remain involved with Special Olympics wherever you go. I hope you will involve your colleagues, your companies, your employees with Special Olympics.
During my recent visit to Iran, a huge red and gold banner was draped across the hall where I spoke. It said: “Sports Must Create Spiritual and Ethical Character in Humans”
This is what we do! That’s why the leaders of some 3,000 teachers and students who were in the audience took down that banner with that slogan and gave it to me.
In 1990, at a press conference in Washington, these words were spoken by the Minister-Counselor of the Soviet Embassy, Alexander Potemkin: “Special Olympics will assist us all, East and West, to synchronize our moral compasses!”
Those words from an official of the Soviet Union prove, I believe, that Special Olympics is not only an unprecedented sports movement. It is truthfully, a Movement changing humanity for the better wherever it goes. Thanks be to God, it is now going everywhere!
Thank you for you are doing and will continue to do for Special Olympics.
