By Tom Hall

Two years ago, my wife Laura, a former college basketball coach, jumped at the opportunity to coach Special Olympics basketball. After a chance meeting with someone involved with Team Davis (the local nonprofit organization that helps to enrich the lives of children and adults with developmental, cognitive or physical disabilities) she went to one practice and was completely hooked.

Soon after, my then-12-year-old son Willie began to volunteer. He, too, immersed himself in the coaching and ended up loving the experience. While I think he has helped Team Davis, what I have really seen is how Team Davis has helped him. This past year, my 12-year-old daughter Katie has also gotten the opportunity to help with coaching.

In a city full of wonderful and enriching opportunities for our youth, it was an activity where they were merely support and not the focus that has been the most enriching and has offered them, by far, the greatest opportunity for personal growth.

The athletes in Special Olympics may have various levels of conditions, including but not limited to autism spectrum disorders, ADHD and Down syndrome, but the events — ranging from the Summer Games to the weekly practices — are much like any other sporting event. As Katie sits under the shade structure between softball tournament games, she joins a group of athletes playing cards to pass the time. Willie, meanwhile, is defending the merits of a New England Patriots championship season with the many Niner fans in the group.

Thanks to Team Davis President Robin Dewey, who nominated him, Willie was a co-winner of the city of Davis’ Golden Heart award for community service last spring. “I have gotten a lot more than I have given,” he, quite accurately, told the City Council at an awards ceremony. “It doesn’t feel like community service, just playing sports and hanging out with people I like.”

Sometimes, there are some special moments that I know will stay with my kids forever. At the Special Olympics Northern California regional softball tournament a couple of weeks ago, Team Davis sent three teams to the competition. One of those teams, The Purple People Eaters, had played their best softball of the tourney and took a 3-0 lead into the top of the fifth and final inning of the gold medal game. But their opponent didn’t go down quietly, stringing together four straight hits with two outs to make the score 3-2 with the tying run at second and the go-ahead run at first.

The next batter had hit the ball into the outfield in his previous at-bat, however, he was unable to run due to a medical condition and the ball was retrieved for the out before he could reach first base. After making the play, the Team Davis Purple People Eaters defense decided that if that batter hit the ball to the outfield again, they would field it and throw it to our pitcher, thus allowing the runner to reach first base.

Well, sure enough, he came up again, but this time with the game’s outcome on the line. Again, he smashed the ball to the outfield, and the Purple defense stayed true to its word, returning the ball to the pitcher as the tying run scored.  Meanwhile, the batter had begun slowly shuffling his way toward first base. As our pitcher held the ball, the fans in the packed stands, the players and coaches from both teams, and the umpires all erupted in applause and cheers in an extended ovation as he made his way safely to first base.

Although it was tough to see the game get tied up on what surely could have been the final out and a gold medal, the Davis athletes knew they had made the right decision when the opposing coaches came over and told them how happy their guy was, since he had never made it to first base before in an official tournament. The fact that the Purple People Eaters ended up winning the game in the bottom of the inning on Tyler’s walk-off home run made for a wild celebration and the perfect ending.

However, it’s not always paradise, it’s sports. The coaches, the athletes and their families are competitive, for better and for worse. There are still some grumblings about team seedings, umpire calls, teams running up scores, etc. Unfortunately, no competition seems to be immune to that.

But there are subtle differences. Throughout the years, I have left many a sporting event unhappy, either as a player, coach or fan. However, while at times I wish the outcomes could be different, I have always left a Team Davis event with a smile on my face. As the softball season comes to an end with the regional tournament, Brian, who scored the winning run in the Team Davis Grape Apes’ bronze medal game, tells us all about the Blue Devil football game while Tyler asks us if we saw his home run.

I reflect on the day, the enthusiastic greetings, the on-field ups and downs, the time spent with athletes and their families between games, and it strikes me that there’s nothing I would have rather done that day. As we say goodbye and drive off, I can’t help but be thankful for what Team Davis has given our family.

— Tom Hall and his wife Laura live in Davis with their two children, Willie, ninth grade, and Katie, seventh grade. Tom, an adviser for the College of Biological Sciences, has worked at UC Davis for more than 25 years after starting his professional career as a reporter for the Woodland Daily Democrat. Laura is currently the director of Campus Recreation for UC Davis.

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