Special Olympians: The victorious Hamilton County Stompers

They may have needed a little help to get to the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China in October, but when they hit the basketball court, the Stompers from Hamilton County, Florida lived triumphantly up to their name.

They won all their games handily, and brought home the gold medal.

"Those young men just love basketball, and while they were a bit nervous during their first game in Shanghai, once we put a basketball in their hands, they forgot about the crowd and just played their best," said Helen Udell, who works in exceptional student education at Hamilton County High School and is Special Olympics Hamilton County Coordinator.

Their best was so good that they held a team of non-disabled players from nearby Jiaotong University to a 45-45 tie in an exhibition game. The university team refused to play overtime, according to the Special Olympics Florida website.

Before the Stompers qualified to represent the US at the October 2-11 Games, most of the players had never been more than 50 miles from home, and none had flown in an airplane. Now they were going to be competing halfway around the world among more than 7,000 athletes from 169 countries.

"For most of the athletes, the World Games was a once-in-a-lifetime thing," said Mike Cohen, the team's coach and a deputy sheriff with Hamilton County. "They were blown away by it all – the plane, experiencing a different culture, winning the gold medal.

"Usually it's difficult to get these guys talking, but they were talking the whole time they were there and they haven't quit talking since they got back."

They are very proud of winning the gold for the community, and for everyone who supported them – which was a lot of local people and businesses.

The Hamilton County Special Olympics organization had to raise $6,000 for each athlete to participate, plus other expenses. It held fundraisers and sought monetary and in-kind donations.

PotashCorp, which operates its White Springs phosphate mine in Hamilton County and is always actively involved in the communities where it does business, was one of the businesses that jumped to respond. It donated $2,900, and employees volunteered more than 60 hours at fundraisers.

"When the word got out about the team's chance to go to China, PotashCorp was the first company to come through with a donation," Udell said. "And each time we ran into a stumbling block, it stepped up again to help us out."

When the team's bus to the Orlando airport fell through, for example, "I happened to mention this dilemma to one of my contacts at PotashCorp," she said. "The next thing we knew, it was providing a bus at no cost to the team."

"We owe quite a bit of gratitude to PotashCorp," coach Cohen agreed. "There wasn't a time when they didn't come through for us."