Sport in its purest form

While those of you who are regular readers of this blog are likely very familiar with what Special Olympics is all about, the reality is there are many people across the world who unfortunately are not. Especially when it comes to the press, and specifically sports journalists.

Although we are a sports organization, many times we end up being featured in the news as part of a human interest story instead of on the front page of the sports section. There are many seasoned journalists out there who maybe have heard of Special Olympics but they don’t fully understand us. For those media who have the opportunity to get involved with Special Olympics firsthand, many of them finally go through a moment of realization that Special Olympics is an organization all about real, true sport, and ultimately the power of sport – as a vehicle to inspire and change lives.

John Dorsey of ESPN, joined us at our recent World Games. He had years of experience covering the world’s top sporting events coming into his reporting of Special Olympics earlier this summer in Greece. He was working away capturing stories for ESPN.com and then he happened to come across Special Olympics athlete Ederson Idrogo from Peru, who unknowingly gave a veteran sports reporter that moment of realization.

I strongly encourage you to take 5 minutes out of your day and read the post John shared on ESPN’s Front Row blog about his experience. Better yet, please do me a favor and share it with someone you know who loves sports but doesn’t quite know what they are missing because they haven’t come to understand the transformative power of Special Olympics: http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2011/08/sport-in-its-purest-form/