Smiles filled Andy Hardin Field in Hollister, as
student-athletes of the sixth annual Baler Gifted Games leaped, ran
and threw their way through the Friday afternoon event. As with all
of the previous five gifted games, the athletes were all winners as
students and parents from Hollister and Gilroy cheered them on.
Smiles filled Andy Hardin Field in Hollister, as student-athletes of the sixth annual Baler Gifted Games leapt, ran and threw their way through the Friday afternoon event. As with all of the previous five gifted games, the athletes were all winners as students and parents from Hollister and Gilroy cheered them on.
For the third year, students from the Gilroy Unified School District joined the gifted games, lifting the total participants to 287 people. More than 1,000 additional people filled the football field as athletes participated in 100-yard dashes and other activities.
Students from high schools and grade schools from throughout the area participated in the games with stands filled to the brink with spectators.
The Gifted Games began as an in-house activity designed to give local special-needs students a chance to compete in athletic events that normally were not available to them. Also, with no Special Olympics chapter in the county, life skills teachers and sports medicine trainer Dave Tari felt a local version of the games would be beneficial.
The joy at the event, though, resonated throughout the field area.
San Benito High School student Jonathan Byron simply said it felt good to take part in the event.
“Because it’s fun,” he added, as he was basking in excitement while hugging others from his team.
For volunteers Megan Warner and Veronica Johnson, members of San Benito High School’s Associated Student Body and Rally Club that helped put on the event, the enjoyment came from the community support.
“It’s great to see people here cheering them on,” Johnson said. “Kids usually wouldn’t say anything, and now they are cheering them on. It’s great.”
Warner said it helps show that despite having challenges, the kids can do anything they want.
“They might do it a little differently, but they still can go out there and do it like everyone else,” Warner said.
The games were a culmination of more than a week of activities that started with a prom for all of the life skills students. Warner and Johnson also helped with the athletes’ training.
“We wanted to get them excited,” Johnson said.
The event was the largest gifted games in its history, with about 300 athletes and the addition of Gilroy High School cheerleaders.
“This is really fantastic,” said Romona Trevino, a Gilroy High School teacher who started the Gifted Games six years ago.
The event was created to give students in life classes – or those with a condition preventing them from participating in school sports – to take part in an athletic event.
“We wanted them to participate in something that every student has the right to participate in,” she said.
Next year, things will change slightly.
For the first time, the gifted games will shift its venue moving to Gilroy for next year, and afterward the hosting city will change each year. The event’s name will be shortened, as well, to the Gifted Games.
“We are looking forward to it,” she said.
To push the partnership of the two cities and their schools, whatever area has more participants will receive a plaque that will exchange hands. This year, Hollister was given the plaque with 187 participants, while Gilroy had 100.
“It’s a pretty amazing way to celebrate all of the kids coming out,” Trevino said.
