Medal Decorated Special Olympian Faked Disability; Fooled Coaches

I know a former Special Olympian who was not disabled. This medal-decorated Special Olympian has two years of college! I used to participate in a division of Special Olympics called Unified Sports, in which half the team is non-handicapped ("partners"), the other half mentally handicapped ("athletes"). That's where I met this man, who participated as an athlete, rather than as a partner.

Many high-functioning, skilled Special Olympians have intellectual deficits that fall above the cut-off point for mental retardation. They are "slow," rather than mentally retarded per se.

If you've ever been a volunteer for Special Olympics, you know that some of the athletes "seem perfectly normal." Athletes who seem "perfectly normal" tend to have what's called borderline intellectual functioning. IQ-wise, they are between 70 and 90, many in the 80s (100 is average; 70 and below is actual retardation).

At some point in their past, they were schooled in special education. They may have been officially diagnosed as borderline or mildly developmentally disabled. They have a history of struggling with academia and of learning things at slower rates relative to their peers. Technically, they qualify as mentally handicapped, but not as mentally retarded. Special Olympics welcomes them.

I'll call the man I knew "Matt." I dated him for eight months, and that's how I know he was NOT mentally disabled, though he was quite quirky and at times immature. He participated as a Special Olympian for 16 years, the first year being when we met, and eventually won 40 state-level medals, and three international gold medals.

He told me he had studied mechanical engineering for those two years in college. I even saw his mechanical engineering blueprint projects. He'd been living on his own since young adulthood, owned a townhome, and told me that over the years, he'd spent nearly $100,000 on sports cars, and at the time I was dating him, had a Corvette and an old beater.

Though the job he had at an industrial plant didn't require a whole lot of smarts, it was definitely a job that no sane manager would hire a mentally "slow" person to perform.

I met Matt on the Unified volleyball team I was assigned to coach. At first I thought he was a partner, but once I heard him talking, figured he was an athlete. Matt had a slight speech impediment. His speech could fool anybody into thinking he was slow-witted.

At first I thought he was a little slow, but as I got to know him, I realized, Hey, why is this guy playing as an athlete? WTF?

Matt had a fixation on winning trophies, even though he had none. He saw mine from martial arts tournaments and that fueled his hunger to collect trophies. Special Olympics gives medals, but the coaches of winning-Unified teams get a trophy. Our volleyball team placed first in the season; I got awarded a big trophy, and Matt demanded that I give it to him because, as he kept insisting, "I carried the team to victory." Of course, I kept the trophy (but eventually chucked it when it fell apart).

His fixation on trophies obviously stemmed from childhood emotional trauma inflicted by his father. Matt was still disgruntled over how his father berated and hit him after he struck out at bat at a Little League game.

Special Olympics does not have the funding to give IQ tests to every participant. Thus, anyone can pose as an athlete in Unified, or Special Olympian in Special Olympics, and get away with it. Especially if they have a speech impediment. A speech impediment does not mean low IQ. And many mentally retarded people have perfect diction.

Matt first got involved in Unified when a coworker was forming a Unified basketball team and asked Matt to play on it. I don't know if the coworker thought Matt was mentally slow due to the speech issue, or invited Matt to play at the last minute to fill a vacancy, figuring Matt could easily pass as an athlete due to his speech. And that's how Matt discovered an opportunity to shine in the realm of athletics, to clean up with medals; it didn't matter that his opponents were mentally retarded. This guy just wanted medals and recognition.

Why didn't I blow the whistle? When we were dating, Matt only did Unified team sports; little did I know that he'd eventually scam Special Olympics over the next 16 years.

Secondly, how could I prove Matt wasn't a little slow? After I broke up with him, it crossed my mind to blow the whistle, but I also figured I'd merely appear like an ex-girlfriend hell-bent on revenge. I moved on with my life and forgot about Matt.

Special Olympics needs some regulation. I'm sure there are other scammers, cleaning up in medals and glory, even if they darned know they have an unfair advantage over their opponents, but relishing the spotlight and collection of medals nonetheless, because they were robbed of feeling valued as children.

I broke up with Matt many years ago and recently Googled his very unusual full name. I learned of his Special Olympics wins from a PDF newsletter that's several years old. The newsletter had his photo, and the article hailed him as an accomplished Special Olympian.

The article also said he had to retire from the workforce, as well as retire from Special Olympics, due to an incurable, and potentially fatal, lung disease he picked up from the workplace. I don't even know if he's still alive, but the disease he had is debilitating and progressive. If Matt is dead, he died having finally realized his dream: being a medal-decorated athlete.