Going for more gold

If Kirk Grogan’s fortune cookie proves right, he’ll be bringing home yet another gold medal from Shanghai, China, in 2007 to add to the 20-odd medals he has won thus far.

It was at a celebratory dinner after the 2006 Special Olympics Idaho games in late-August when Grogan, with many other teammates from the Coeur d’Alene Eagles Special Olympics team, cracked open the startling fortune cookie. GOLD IS IN YOUR FUTURE, it read.

“It was freaky,” said Grogan, 33, a school crossing guard who is also on the board of directors for Idaho’s Special Olympics. “No one believed me,” he said, pulling out the folded fortune that he still carries in his wallet as evidence.

However, Grogan, a Rathdrum native, is just one of four Coeur d’Alene Eagles athletes brushing-up on their Chinese in anticipation of the Special Olympics World Games next October. Along with Grogan, who has won the gold medal in the shot-put event for the last five years, local athletes Chad Schaff, 34, a gold-medal winner in cycling, Tammy Topps, 28, and Steve Mitchell, 34, both gold-medal winners in bowling, will also be making the trip to China.

The Coeur d’Alene-team athletes will be joined by four other Special Olympics athletes from across Idaho who have been selected to compete in the world games. The eight successful candidates had to receive gold medals in their respective events at the 2005 state games in order to be eligible for the world games.

“They’ve overcome a lot. (The Special Olympics) helps a lot of people,” said Wanda Lyon, an assistant coach with the nearly 100-member Eagles team who got involved several years ago when her daughter started to compete. “It’s really been a joy working with them. The excitement on their faces and how friendly they are to one another … They have the biggest hearts in the world. They are just wonderful athletes.”

Except for his perpetual smile, Grogan’s stocky 270-pound 5-foot-1-inch frame, tree trunk-size arms and shoulders, shroud a “teddy bear” of a personality underneath, Lyon said. As a five-time defending gold winner, Grogan, who can also bench-press 385 pounds, has been a source of inspiration for many on the team, including Lyon’s daughter, Loretta. She went from not competing in the Special Olympics, to winning gold in the shot put in her first year, competing under Grogan’s tutelage.

“I think Kirk has been a big, big influence on a lot of the team. My daughter is a good example,” Lyon said.

But getting the word out about Special Olympics and its fundraisers has been a challenge in itself, Grogan said. While the eight Idaho athletes chosen to travel to China are supported by the state Special Olympics committee and state-sponsored fundraisers, the 100 local athletes participate in alternative group fundraisers and must find sponsors to support the various regional meets. Because of these fundraisers, they make the events possible and free to join.

“And (participation) doesn’t cost athletes or volunteers anything,” Lyon added. “It’s just such a neat program for people that are in it.”

Those involved in Special Olympics agreed that the competitions take second place to the friendships they have made and the pure enjoyment of competing. For example, Lyon said, in no other sport will athletes stop running to help a fallen racer and all finish together. And it usually happens every year.

“Watching (the Special Olympics) is something you’ll never forget,” Grogan said.

For many other athletes, the friendships they have made have lasted for years.

“We have met a lot of friends and we’ve maintained those friends,” said Mitchell, a gold medalist bowler who, like many of the athletes, has been involved with the program since childhood. Special Olympic competitors can start at age 8 and continue on for long as they want.

Mitchell’s attitude is echoed in the Special Olympics’ creed, which Grogan is quick to recite; “Let me win, and if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”

And how did Mitchell celebrate after he learned he had been selected for the world games?

“I went out of my house and yelled at the top of my lungs,” he said.