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Date: 8/8/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — When Lynn McCarthy tried to find a sports program for her special needs daughter to join, she discovered there was nothing appropriate for her — so she founded the first-ever Special Olympics branch in town. That was 25 years ago, and now she’s in the Massachusetts Special Olympics Hall of Fame.
“I was ecstatic when I found out. I had no idea I’d been nominated,” said McCarthy. “My daughter was 9 years old at the time, and I put the word out that I was going to start a little soccer program, and it grew from there.”
McCarthy is now 65 years old and has just retired from an advertising job at a cable television company. She lives in West Springfield with her daughter, who is now 33 and still competing in Special Olympics events. Noted for her dedication to the organization and its athletes, McCarthy was inducted into the statewide Hall of Fame recently during an event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
The mission of Special Olympics is “to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities,” according to the organization.
With a staff of more than a half dozen coaches and a handful of volunteers, McCarthy is program director, responsible for creating partnerships with municipal agencies and benefactors, planning and helping run fundraisers, organizing competitions and overnight events with other groups and myriad other activities that keep the program running — including answering an endless stream of texts from the athletes.
“They tend to text me all the time. They want to know, ‘Do we have practice tomorrow? What time does it start? Where are we playing?’ They need reassurance,” she said.
While she was doing all of that, McCarthy was also working full-time, and teaching aerobics and yoga as well as caring for her daughter and their dog. She’s even been an assistant softball coach.
“I spent a lot of late nights trying to keep up with everything. Thankfully I was in sales, so I had a little bit of flexibility,” she said.
The full array of sports in the West Springfield chapter has included basketball, flag football, soccer, softball, aquatics and cheerleading. McCarthy said it’s crucial that all students in the public school system have activities designed for them.
“As children in our program enter fifth grade, they start separating from the other kids because they’re not doing sports with the schools. You want to give them an option to have some kind of socialization and an outlet for them to make friends,” said McCarthy.
“You have to try to normalize them as much as possible, because they want to be like everybody else. Giving them this competitive outlet also keeps their weight in check, because like anyone, they can get lazy and sit around the house,” she added.
Whether it’s between innings in a softball game, on the way to a cheerleading competition at Gillette Stadium, watching kids learn how to swim, or seeing an athlete simply catch a ball, McCarthy said Special Olympics has played a special role in her life.
“It puts so many things in perspective because we take so many things for granted. I have a pretty darn good life. Just seeing these kids be happy and get a lot out of what they’re doing really fills your heart,” she said.
Now that she’s retired, McCarthy may do some consulting or take time to relax, but she won’t be far from the group she founded two and a half decades ago simply to give her daughter and other children a chance to play together.
“Just seeing their happy faces and how appreciative they are — that’s where it all comes together,” said McCarthy. “I’m not ready to give that up.”