Special Olympians can thank Eunice Shriver

SAMMAMISH — Shelby Corno stands at the free throw line, spins the ball from her left hand to her right, stares at the front of the rim, bends her knees and, launches the basketball with two hands, softly swishing the shot.

And the smile that stretches across her face is as warm as a hug.

This shining moment on a gray Friday morning is a mere snapshot of the legacy of Eunice Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics who died last week at the age of 88.

Shelby Corno is just one of millions of athletes globally, whose possibilities have been enlarged through sports, whose lives have been enriched through participation in Special Olympics.

Seventeen years ago, Shelby was born with Down syndrome. The devastation a family feels when it first hears that diagnosis is profound. The fears can be overwhelming. The challenges are enormous.

"You go through a typical grieving process," Shelby's mother, Kelly Corno, said. "You grieve for the child you didn't have. I mean you had an expectation of what was going to happen. You have those hopes and dreams and aspirations. Then you have to begin to deal with the child you do have and there's a lot of fear in that."

Eunice Shriver, whose older sister Rosemary was mentally disabled, wanted every special needs child to have the best possible life, to live without fear. She wanted to change people's perceptions, wanted the world to understand the gifts and capabilities of this group she called "her special friends."

Coming from a family, the Kennedys, for whom sports were so important, she had a vision of the good that competition could bring to special needs kids. She took on a task that was Olympian and she turned it into something as grand as the Games in Athens, or Beijing, or Lillehammer.

She traveled the world to spread the word. She dived into pools, slapped mustard on sandwiches, hugged and hustled around the planet, showing the way for millions of families who were looking for a better quality of life for their challenged children.

"What's so amazing to me is that sports were what were missing for women, in general, when she [Shriver] first got this idea," Kelly said. "She clearly didn't feel herself limited as a woman."

Shriver de-stigmatized disabilities. She gave Special Olympics athletes a transformative sense of accomplishment. She changed the world view of mental retardation.

One thousand athletes competed in the first Special Olympics World Games in Chicago in 1968. In Shanghai in 2007, there were 7,500. There now also is a World Winter Games.

From its modest beginnings, Special Olympics is in more than 180 countries and serves 3.1 million athletes. Special Olympics of Washington, incorporated in 1975, after a visit to the state from Shriver, serves 7,000 athletes.

"At a time when people were being told to put their special needs kids in a home," said Shelby's sister Lexie, a student at Western Washington, "Eunice Shriver was more than willing to say that, 'Yes, I have a sibling with special needs and I want to make her life better, rather than ignore the problem and pretend it isn't there.' I find that very, very inspiring."

Basketball helped Shelby Corno find her place. Ask her what she likes about playing basketball and she'll tell you, "I like making baskets and I like playing with my teammates."

"It's a chance for her to have some hang time with her friends," her father Tom said. "She's part of a team."

Kelly often goes to Skyline High School, where Shelby will be a junior, and observes her daughter in class. She has noticed that, since Shelby began playing basketball in the Special Olympics program, her daughter is more open and engaging in the classroom.

"I had hopes for Shelby," Kelly said. "I hoped that she would be able to live alone some day. I hoped that the kids would be nice to her at school. And, in that sense, Shelby has completely surpassed any hopes I could have ever had for her.

"Special Olympics gave her the chance to be normal, to do all the things that her sisters [Madison and Lexie] do. It's given her a sense of pride. I'm not sure I pictured her as an athlete, but, when I think about Special Olympics, it's so lovely to know that, without question, Shelby will be accepted."

If they had been given the chance to meet Eunice Shriver, Tom and Kelly Corno said they would have liked to have shown her the pictures of Shelby and her teammates playing basketball in their green Skyline uniforms.

They would have liked for Shriver to see the joy and the determination on the faces of all the players. Most of all, they would have liked to say thanks.

"She's taught all of us," Kelly said, "that one person can make a difference. That's so empowering. It's so amazing."

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.