Florida program wants to add surfing to Special Olympics

From Orlando Sentinel in Florida:

In waist-deep water off Cocoa Beach, 32-year-old Dawn Blanchard is taking only the second surfing lesson of her life, yet she manages to stand, however briefly, on nearly every wave she catches. And each time she does, she flashes a double thumbs-up, beams joyously and announces, "I did it! I did it!"

This continues for two hours. Yet no one — not the surf instructors, not the considerable crowd of earnest spectators on the beach, certainly not Blanchard herself — seems to weary.

"It's awesome," said Deb Spence, a Special Olympics swim coach who cheers from the beach. "She's actually doing a lot better than I did when I started."

Blanchard is one of Spence's Special Olympics swimmers, and this surf lesson is part of a grand experiment to try to introduce surfing as a Special Olympics sport. It's a collaboration between Cocoa Beach's iconic Ron Jon Surf Shop, which is picking up the tab, and Special Olympics Florida. The program launched a week ago with eight athletes, ages 18 to 43. All of them have intellectual disabilities, from Down syndrome to autism.

There was, to be honest, a fair amount of skepticism about how readily the athletes would take to it.

Ryan Smith, a 19-year-old man with autism, for instance, is not easily enthused. But after the first lesson, his father, Mike, said: "It was like he had this rush of adrenaline. He couldn't stop talking about it. And when we got home, we laid a towel down on the floor so he could show his brothers and sisters how he surfed."

Craig Carroll, owner of the Ron Jon Surf School and a former coach and pro surfer, was not surprised by the response. Once he was assured that all the students were competent swimmers, he knew they'd be fine. After all, his instructors already had worked with people with special needs — including children with autism, amputees and people who are blind.

With the foam-core boards used by surfing students, which offer greater stability and less likelihood of injury, Carroll also knew it would be exceedingly safe.

"Out of all the people who come here to learn to surf, I would say 80 percent are riding the surf board within the first 20 minutes," Carroll said. "And Special Olympics was the same thing. In fact, our first ride came at about eight minutes into it."

That was 20-year-old Jenny Ching-Fane (pictured), who looks like a natural in the surf. Born with Down syndrome, she seems to lack any fear of trying new things, and she follows directions precisely. When a surf instructor yells to her to "pop up" and stand on the board, she does so almost instantaneously.

"I love surfing," she said on the beach. Then, a moment later, "I can do a cartwheel. Want to see?"

Before anyone can answer, she executes a perfect cartwheel on the hard-packed sand before grabbing her board and running back into the surf.

If indeed surfing is to become a Special Olympic sport, it will take a lot of people with Ching-Fane's type of enthusiasm. First, it would need to be embraced by Special Olympic programs in other Florida counties, and then the state as a whole. To reach the national level, it will take a minimum number of states to participate, and similarly, a minimum number of countries to reach the international level. The last sport to accomplish that was judo, which did so in the 2007 World Summer Games.

But organizers are taking one thing at a time. Monty Castevens, president of Special Olympics Florida, says no one has ever attempted to add surfing to the repertoire of sports before, and how far things go will depend on how much it's embraced at the local level.

"It's a learning process right now. It could just stay in Brevard County, or it could take off in pretty short order," he said. "But I'm excited. There's no reason in the world why we shouldn't be doing it here in Florida."

One fan in particular is surfing instructor Jennifer Rowlette-Reneau, mom to 4 1/2-year-old Riley, born with Down syndrome. The summer after her daughter's birth in December 2005, Rowlette-Reneau started what has become the annual Smiley Riley Beach Bash — a day of surfing, fun and food for special-needs kids and their siblings. Ron Jon's has been a major sponsor.

"I just wanted to give something back to the community, back to the people who had supported me when Riley was born," she said. "What we learned was how coachable these kids are and how much fun they had. I like to think Riley was a catalyst for all of this."