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Day of Champions continues success
Third annual even draws more than 100 buddies
By Emma Tocci
Collegian Reporter
"I just can't
describe it. You really have to go," said Jen Meyer, director
of Best Buddies, days before the group's third annual Day of
Champions event held last Saturday.
Later, standing in Jesse Philips Arena watching
people of various abilities-the wheelchair-bound playing with
all-star collegiate athletes-she said: "This is something
you just can't explain."
Months of planning and hours of phone calls
led up the Day of Champions, the highlight of the year for the
organization of college student volunteers and their buddies.
This year's turnout was the largest so far with 139 buddies,
133 students and 80 parent observers all watching or participating
in noncompetitive events like softball, football tosses, basketball
shots and picture painting.
Many of the attendants were excited for the
performance by the Chris Burke Band. Burke, better known to
some as Charles "Corky" Thatcher from Life Goes On,
travels nationally performing family-friendly songs with John
and Joe DeMasi, twin brothers who worked at a summer camp Burke
attended on Long Island as a 13-year-old. Burke and the brothers
maintained a relationship and started playing music, cutting
records and touring the country shortly after Life Goes On ended
its run in 1993.
Performing at conferences and workshops for
the developmentally challenged, the group shares its message
that people need to concentrate on their abilities, not their
disabilities, and Joe DeMasi said the message is for everyone.
"[We say] work hard and never give up,"
Joe said. "Look for the good in everyone, in ourselves
and in each other… If everyone is given an opportunity
and support to reach their potential, then the entire society
benefits."
Joe said groups such as Best Buddies are especially
important for young parents because "they need to hear
that their children have potential. This isn't a tragedy."
Joe said that when Burke was born in 1965
and diagnosed with Down syndrome, the doctors advised his parents
to put him in an institution. The general recommendation for
a family with a developmentally disabled child was to "Just
get on with your lives and pretend he was never born,"
Joe said.
Despite the common sentiment that people with
disabilities were less than human, Burke's parents chose to
keep him at home in Manhattan, where they sent him to private
Catholic schools for children with special needs. Later, after
a series of acting jobs with ABC, the network developed Life
Goes On especially for Burke.
Thanks to his hard work and the good choices
of several others, Burke has become a role model for a generation
of people with disabilities.
Burke said people come up to him and say,
"I have Down syndrome just like you."
"And they're proud of themselves,"
Joe added. "Being just who they are."
Walking around the gymnasium Saturday with
21-month-old Samuel on her arm, Krystal Page said that as the
mother of a baby diagnosed with Down, she's grateful for the
encouragement gatherings like the Day of Champions give.
Things haven't been easy, Samuel's grandmother,
Barbara Brown, explained as she cooed and bragged over the baby.
"But we just had to dig our feet in and
go," Brown said.
Though the assumption in the past was that
the developmentally disabled could not learn, this is changing--even
little Samuel is making progress in a therapy program at the
intermediate school district. Last year on Mother's Day, Samuel
sat up for the first time. A month later, on Father's Day, he
stood for the first time.
"Every little thing he does is such a
big deal," Page said. "He'll get there. He just won't
get there as fast."
"He's so proud of himself, too,"
Brown said. "He'll just look up and be so happy."
Junior Rebecca Stempien and her buddy Kevin
Ellair smiled all afternoon, dancing to the music and kicking
an inflated soccer ball. Although Stempien joined Best Buddies
as a freshman, this is the first year she has had a personal
buddy.
"It is just so much fun,"
Stempien said. "I think I get so much more out of it by
seeing him so happy-it's almost a selfish thing. I feel bad!"
Calling the participants together on the bleachers,
the song "We Are The Champions" belts out from the
loudspeakers.
Awarding plastic medals and bright smiles
to the buddies, junior Jon Dumke stops to give a hug. Dumke
said his mother taught handicapped children, so he grew up around
them.
"I don't like to make them feel
like they're different," he said.
Stempien said the buddies have shown her what
is really important.
"It's the little things,"
Stempien said. "They make you learn. They appreciate the
little things."
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