Captain Schmuck

Joshua is not a sports kinda guy. He doesn’t watch it, he could care less about who wins. He likes the teams, but beyond that it’s pretty much nonexistent. Joshua has played Special Olympics soccer for two seasons now. He also plays bocce ball. His bocce game is much better than his soccer game. He is not the fastest runner nor is he the quickest thinker. Bocce is a laid back game that he can take at his own pace. There is no team to keep up with. You are your own man on the field.

Today was the nationals for soccer. Joshua wasn’t thrilled to attend or participate. He began complaining of stomach issues and dizziness two days ago. Needless to say, he went whether he was thrilled or not. He did really well! He ran until his face was beet red and he was breathing hard. He took the ball, he kicked the ball, he stood still and had a conversation with the ball while we all screamed for him to kick it into the goal. Whatever. Bottom line is he did his best and we are proud of him.

Each team is allowed to have “partners”. These are two or three “normals” who spend time in the game helping their team members move the game along. They are not allowed to score a goal. They are supposed to pass to the “special” people, help wrestle it a little from the other team and give some general directions. Now, after all of those quotation marks…

Jump ahead to game time. Our “partners” were teenagers or younger. They were kids who are in regular soccer and volunteer for Special Olympics. They are at almost every practice with us and are great young people. The other team, however, had adult “partners” who felt that they needed to prove something to someone. In the first game it was a woman, pretty butch-like, who did not let one single ball past the area around her. It got to the point where our team parents were getting quite annoyed. The good part was that our team worked their asses off and overcame her brick wall way of playing. We beat them 4-1.

Game two arrived after a lunch break. We were well fed, well rested and ready to go. The team we played had just finished a game that they had won. They were winded, sweaty and dragging just a little. Until the whistle blew that is. They had one girl who scored like a mad woman. Their goalie was out of this world. Not that ours wasn’t, but damn. And to top it off, their “partner” was a grown man, over 6 feet tall and easily over 200 lbs. He was not playing, he was serious. He, obviously, thought he was trying out for the professional…or for the asshole of the year award. He booted that ball across the field, he played the entire game for his team until it came to actually kicking it into the goal. He stole it from every one of our players.

He knocked a kid down. Now, when I say this, let me draw the mental picture of this boy for you. He’s about 12 years old, short, weighs around 60 lbs, quiet and mild mannered. Here came this monstrous man right at him. He had already intimidated the hell out of every player. The kid did what he could to kick the ball, but Captain Schmuck knocked this kid on his ass. He cried and the coach called him off the field to recover. Poor guy. At that point, someone on the sidelines yelled, “Hey! This is Special Olympics!” Perhaps he missed that memo. “He was just helping out his team.” Then he found it fun to trash talk our goalie. Our goalie has bipolar and a short fuse. Thankfully one of the coaches was able to help him focus on the game and let the bullshit go.

No one wants a game handed to them. They want to win fair and square. But fair and square means ability to ability. You don’t release this huge fucker who has no issues holding him back and let him smash the players into the ground. No one held up to this team. They won all their games and took the gold.

Special fucking Olympics, man!!!!! The worst part about it for me is that he walked away feeling proud of himself and believing he did a good thing.

Our team took silver. We are so proud of them!!! They really played hard today. This is Joshua’s second silver medal. He got silver in regional bocce ball last year and now silver in national soccer.

He had a fun time and was participating in every thing. Well, that is until a girl from the opposing team stomped his foot. Joshua felt it was on purpose. We tried to explain that things happen in sports like that all of the time by accident. Even if it was on purpose, it’s over and done. You can’t hold on to it. You have to brush it off and get back out there and show them you can be a good sport.

Uh-huh. Well. Yeah. So, the team got silver!!!