Singapore, 17 November 2007
The sun rose bright and shining on this Saturday morning. In the quiet private estate of Lengkong Limau, a flurry of activities was happening at the Towner Gardens Special School. Volunteers and helpers were getting ready with preparations for the Basketball and Hockey Competition Carnival.
This carnival was specially organized to test and assess how good the Special Olympics athletes have been learning and training to play basketball and hockey.
There are two sets of tests - one of individual skill assessments and the other is a 3-on-3 basketball match.
While we were busying briefing volunteers of their roles and assigning their duties, some of the athletes have arrived and cheerily greeting us good mornings and when the event would be starting. We started with Dr Teo-Koh Sock Mian, President of Special Olympics Singapore thanking the volunteers and parent support groups helping in the event and encouraging the athletes do their best for the competition. The opening ceremony ended with one of the athletes reciting the Athlete's Oath: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
It was personally exhilarating for me to see the marked improvements from most of the athletes who had taken part in our initial Basketball Clinic in August. Then we introduced basketball playing to them in different sets of stations highlighting a particular skill such as dribbling, passing and shooting the basket. Some of them had difficulty just hitting the ball and the target or dribbling. However, today's skill assessment tests were a breeze for almost everyone who passed with flying colours. Some of the athletes have even graduated to play in the 3-on-3 matches with each other.
We had Aaron Katz, Regional Vice-President of Corporate Sales, APAC be the impromptu coach of the day. He was shouting encouragements and tips from the bench to the teams on defending, passing and shooting. Rick Harshman, our repeat volunteer from the first event, was probably the person who worked the hardest that day. He was the referee and spent almost all four hours at the outdoor court in the scorching sun refereeing team after team and coaching the athletes when he can. This is really not easy considering how hot and humid Singapore's weather is like.
The other volunteers such as You Yiran, Myia Ross and Shirley Tan were liaison officers helping with registration and later assigned to teams to bring them around to the different skills stations. We also had some family and friends join us which make the event more boisterous and fun. The SOS also invited some basketball players from Raffles Junior College to help and it was fantastic seeing all these students mingling with the athletes- we saw them playing soccer with those athletes when everyone is bored with waiting for their turns; chatting with them and having a good time together.
