Three decades ago, when Kevin O’Brien was 13 years old, he had spent much of his life dealing with limitations imposed by others. Down syndrome had created barriers–the schools that would not admit him, the programs that would not include him, the opportunities that seemed unreachable.
Then came something new. O’Brien spent a day in the sun at Soldier Field. There were 1,000 athletes at the first Chicago Special Olympics, 150 from Chicago, the others from 26 states and Canada.
Thirty years later, O’Brien remembers so many details of that first event–the parade of athletes, the presence of decathlete Rafer Johnson, the swimming pool in the middle of Soldier Field, the victory dinner at the La Salle Hotel.
O’Brien also remembers what he felt on that Saturday in July, 1968.
“Happy,” he said. “A good time. I was enjoying myself.”
A total of 3,000 athletes are expected to take part in the 30th anniversary celebration at the University of Chicago. At least 22 competed in the original event. O’Brien plans to compete in the shot put and the 800-meter race walk, but that is just the beginning of his involvement.
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Of the 18 sports offered in Chicago, at the open or masters level, O’Brien takes part in 18, from powerlifting to basketball to volleyball to floor hockey.
He has won so many gold medals in so many competitions that his sister, Melanie O’Brien, an assistant program coordinator for Chicago Special Olympics, could only make an estimate of 400.
Five years ago, he was selected from a national list of nominees to carry the Flame of Hope at the 25th anniversary celebration in Orlando. He was honored as one of the longest participating athletes in the history of the program, a veteran of the pilot project created by Anne Burke in 1965.
Before the competitions and medals, when O’Brien faced barrier after barrier in his education and development, there was one piece of good fortune.
At West Pullman Park on 123rd Street and Stuart Avenue on the South Side, Anne Burke, then known as Anne McGlone, the park’s program director, introduced a recreational program for people with mental retardation. The O’Brien family lived across the street.
Suddenly there was a place where the playground cruelty of his peers could be reduced, where the possibilities of accomplishment were stressed and exercise provided a positive stimulation. The involvement of his two nieces and nephew has extended the family’s involvement in Special Olympics to a third generation.
Kevin’s brother John, whose volunteering carried from the early days to the present, remembered how he discovered the running talent of some of the athletes.
“It was real simple,” John O’Brien said. “We could never catch them.”
Five years after undergoing hip surgery, O’Brien combines his training with a full-time job in assembly work. For 22 years, he has been employed at the Alsip Sertoma Job Training Center. He has done volunteer work at a local hospital and nursing home. He has been a eucharistic minister.
The help that O’Brien provides for younger athletes sometimes makes him take on the role of an assistant counselor.
“He’s just open to anything,” said Jackie Guthrie, O’Brien’s coach for more than two years. “He was definitely a role model. He would pull people in and help teach them things. If someone was lazy and didn’t want to try something, he would seek them out and get them to try.”
As he looked ahead to the competition, Kevin O’Brien recalled the words that the athletes will speak before the games begin.
“Let me win,” he said. “But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”
He is 43 now, three decades later, and there are no plans to slow down.
“I’m not going to retire,” O’Brien said. “I want to do everything.”