Besides being members of our exclusive club that is!
If you watched the ESPYs a few nights ago, you didn't miss the winners of the "Athlete with a Disability" category when you went to the bathroom, grabbed some popcorn, or in my case-took the dogs out. That award wasn't televised. But this blog isn't about just another oversight by the media to include people 
with disabilities in the mainstream. A couple hours after the award show, I looked up the winners and noticed an interesting commonality in both the winning male and female athletes with disabilities.
Both winners are the only athletes amongst their competitors in the category that do NOT participate in adapted sports. Both winners, Shay Oberg and Ryan Kocer, compete against (and with in Shay's case) able-bodied athletes. All of the other athletes up for this award participate in elite level disabled sports, including wheelchair basketball, adapted swimming, Paralympic soccer, and track. The winners were chosen by public vote, so maybe this says something about how most of America decides who's the best...in this case athlete.
[Photo caption: Ryan Kocer is pictured in red wrestling gear attempting to pin a competitor. Ryan is a single leg amputee.]
It's usually an easy and quick process for me to decide where I sit on an issue involving disabled sports. I almost always have a strong and certain opinion, but this one has me stumped so I thought I'd open up the floor to hear your thoughts on the commonality between the winners and the shared qualities of the losers. To get you started, here are some of the thoughts and potential explanations for the finding that have been tumbling around in my head:
- The public is largely uneducated about Paralympic level sports: Unfortunately, Americans aren't provided exposure to the Paralympics or to other elite disabled sports competitions. Too
many people mistake the Paralympics for the Special Olympics and only a small minority really understand how competitive our sports really are. Everyone who voted has surely seen a wrestling match or a girls' fast pitch softball game so that realm of competition was familiar to them. - People seem more compelled by athletes that can hang with able-bodied athletes: Maybe it's the whole underdog phenomenon or the fact that to even gain consideration for a team these athletes often have to overcome a stifling level of ignorance. Whatever the reason, I've witnessed the tendency in my sport (swimming). People were blown away when I entered able-bodied meets to make time standards for national disabled swim meets. Even after I'd explain that my placing in the meet didn't matter, people were in awe that I could "keep up". Almost with exception, media and most people were more interested in that fact than where the time actually placed me in the rankings for my sport.
- Athletes that compete with able-bodied athletes do not usually have severe disabilities: Of course, "severe" is relative, but most adapted sports offer a fairly objective way to determine severity. In swimming, everyone is assigned a classification number. Basically, the lower the number the more severe the disability. Both the athletes that won this category would be considered to have milder disabilities in the adapted sports world. Maybe voters felt they were more physically capable of being more "athletic" or perhaps voters don't understand how athletes who use wheelchairs train.
- Not all sports are offered in an adapted capacity. Both winning athletes sports of choice don't really have a comparable version in organized disabled sports. Sure there's wheelchair softball, but Shay Oberg wouln't be eligible. It's not a Paralympic sport, but then again able-bodied softball isn't in the Olympics anymore either. There's also not an organized version of adapted wrestling that can be compared to the college level of competition. So if these athletes want to compete in their respective sports, they have to do so against people without disabilities.
[Photo caption: Shay Oberg wearing sunglasses while playing outfield. She's gripping her glove against her body with her arm that ends at the elbow level.]
Before any Oberg or Kocer fans get fired up on this subject, it should be stated that in NO way am I suggesting these two amazing athletes didn't deserve to win the ESPY. I just found how the 2 winners were the same AND different from the 6 other athletes that didn't win more than a coincidence. What do you think?
