Please don't take our laughter the wrong way!

Last weekend was the regional volleyball tournament for Special Olympics. The fact that Molly's team was 1st place in their division after losing both games that they played sounds like quite a feat doesn't it? After watching their practices for the last 6 weeks, I was more than a little nervous about how this tournament was going to go down since my girl didn't seem to understand the game...at all! And to be honest, the rest of the team was ducking and not moving for the balls either so Molly wasn't alone.

After one practice, I asked the coach if maybe she could show them all a video of a REAL volleyball game and she liked that idea. She said "I'm not sure how to get them to move from the tiny little circle that they are standing in?" What she was describing was what the rest of us were seeing too: The ball would come over the net and even if it were just 1 foot away from an "athlete"(as they are called in Special Olympics) the player wouldn't budge an inch. The ball would drop with a plop on the floor and the point was over. Basically if the other team could successfully serve the ball over the net, our team would not return it!

Most of the other teams we practiced with could serve it over the net.

So I was surprised the day of the tournament to see that a few of the players were really moving and swinging their arms in a little attempt to hit the ball. Don't picture spiking the ball here or anything REALLY fabulous but movement was happening. And a few of them had learned to serve! This Bad News Bears team might do okay?!!

And then there was this sweet thing. Standing like this throughout the.entire.game. Even when the play was over. Molly's arms HAD to be sore by the end of the two games? I wish that I had taken a picture from the front as she had the hugest smile on her face the whole time too. The ball would come near her, but she didn't budge. It would land right beside her and she'd make no effort to hit the ball. But by golly her hands were up! And she was happy! And the rest of the team never got mad at her.

So there we were watching and giggling and loving every minute of Molly's non competitive spirit. The rest of us play to win so it's such a foreign concept to see her absolute gentleness on the court. When I posted this picture to my FB page, I realized that others might not understand our laughing and I hoped that others would get that we laugh out of joy and total acceptance of Molly. Can you see the love in her dad and brothers eyes? I hope so.

So here are the champs of the "Unassisted Division". All of the other teams had 3 typical peer players (i.e. coaches or siblings that do not have a disability) on the court with the 3 Special Olympians. This keeps the play moving, though I am sure there are rules around what they can and can not do. I never saw a typical player try and win the point. They were there to pass the ball to a team mate and keep the play alive. We were the only team at the tournament that had only Special Olympians playing. Which meant that the ball didn't go back and forth very often and when it DID.....we were ecstatic!

#2 is our girl and we loved that she picked that # since Jack has always been #22 for lacrosse. They all were SO proud of getting the blue ribbons. Did they not understand that they lost both of their games pretty handily? I'm not sure? But that really isn't what matters to these beautiful people. What they love is spending time together and having something productive to do together. They are very sweet and supportive of each other and that is very special to behold in this day and age.