Westside Special Olympics, a year-round sports program for developmentally disabled children and adults, will launch athletic training programs in Malibu in January.
“This is going to be great,” said parent Laureen Sills at an organizational meeting Dec. 7 at Malibu High School. “I’m committed.”
Danny Price, community services program supervisor for the city of Santa Monica, said the outreach program will begin with aquatics and track and field, “depending on interest.”
“Track and field is the easiest to organize,” Price said. Basketball, he said, is the hardest.
“We will merge Malibu and Westside as one big group for competitions,” Price said.
Malibu youngsters will be able to train in other sports in Santa Monica. For the big annual Special Olympics competition in Long Beach, the athletes compete in one sport. In smaller area competitions they may compete in more than one sport.
In addition to track and field and aquatics, seasonal sports offered by Westside Special Olympics are skiing, floor hockey, volleyball, bocce, basketball, golf, gymnastics, tennis, bowling, cycling, power lifting, soccer and softball.
Price is working with city of Malibu Recreation Supervisor Theresa Odello in expanding the Westside Special Olympics program. Odello said Malibu High School would be the local training venue.
“We want to meet the needs of the community,” said Odello, who volunteers on her own time for Special Olympic programs. She coached Special Olympics basketball in Agoura Hills and played volleyball as a partner athlete on the San Gabriel Valley team that won the gold medal in the SO division of the U.S. Open Championships in Houston in 2002.
Odello, who drove weekly to Rosemead to train with the volleyball team, is eager to see the Special Olympics program up and running in Malibu.
“There are many people out here and they have to drive into Santa Monica,” she said.
Parent Teresa Fazio welcomes the expansion of Westside Special Olympics to Malibu. “It’s about time,” Fazio said.
Local parents enroll their special needs children in Malibu sports programs but it is not an easy task.
“It’s hard to get our kids into regular sports,” parent Sills said. “I have to pay a shadow to take my son to AYSO [soccer].” She added that in AYSO, “the coaches are awesome, the kids and the parents are great.” Her son Danny is eight.
“People would do anything to be helpful,” said Sills, whose daughter Tiana, 12, participates in Malibu Aquatics.
Fazio and Sills, who are active in the Malibu Special Education Foundation, praised Malibu Gymnastics and local karate coach Kurt Lampson as being especially dedicated and helpful to special needs children.
Westside Special Olympics is more than sports. For the developmentally disabled aged 13 and over, it’s a social club. Club activities include excursions to movies, holiday parties, shopping and martial arts classes.
A major social event of the year, Price said, is a dance in March at the Santa Monica Civic Center. “Two hundred, three hundred special needs people” attend the dance, he said.
Athletes must be eight years old to compete and five years old to train. There is no maximum age limitation for participation. Special Olympics, according to the Special Olympics of Southern California Web site, “is open to every person with intellectual disabilities, regardless of the level of degree of that person’s disability, and whether or not that person also has other mental or physical disabilities.” Eligible athletes have functional limitations in learning and adaptive skills.
Westside Special Olympics, Price said, utilizes 275 volunteers who work with the athletes, and new volunteers are welcome.
More information can be obtained by contacting Danny Price at danny-price@santa-monica.org or by calling 310.458.2201, ext. 2018, or Theresa Odello at www.ci.malibu.ca.us, e-mail todello@ci.malibu.ca.us or telephone 310.456.2489, ext. 350. The Westside Special Olympics office telephone is 310.458.8300.