Special Olympians

Sounds of flailing and gasping awoke Ron McGovern, 59, in the dead of the night 15 years ago. Waking his wife Diana, 57, he rushed to the room next door to find their 22-year-old son Billy in the throes of a major seizure. \nBilly's head was twisted to the side and pounded against his pillow. His muscles convulsed as he lay unconscious on the upper deck of the bunk bed he shared with his younger brother, Steve.\nBilly, 37, and Steve, 35, suffer from the fragile X syndrome, a condition that leaves them both mildly mentally handicapped. Epilepsy also plagues their lives. Despite their disabilities, Billy and Steve live their lives to the fullest, whether at home, at work or in the Special Olympics arena. \nThey look forward to every day, said their sister Dawn Allen, 32, who carries the fragile X gene but does not suffer from her brothers' disabilities. \nRon and Diana are used to their sons' seizures, which leave them twitching, disoriented and speechless but often end as quickly as they come. \nBut Ron could tell this seizure was a big one. It just went on and on, he recalled. Fearing Billy might fall off and hurt himself, Ron wanted to move him to the floor. But he just could not lift Billy's quaking 150-pound frame.\nThey called their neighbor from across the street, who leaped out of bed and hurried over. Together, they carried Billy off the bed, bundled him into the car and rushed him to the Bloomington Hospital emergency room. There, an injection calmed him down. \nNow Billy and Steve take medication twice a day to control the seizures. Looking at Steve as he strokes the family's black Labrador retriever, Blackie, on the head, it is hard to imagine either him or Billy helplessly in the throes of a fit. But the seizures still occur, Ron said. The medication only reduces their frequency and severity. \nSteve hugs Blackie close to him. The dog licks Steve's face back.\n"Do they make any money?" Billy wanted to know about Blackie and their other dog Jake, a Brittany spaniel.\nNo, Ron replied, they guard the house and get paid in kind with dog food. Billy and Steve both help pay for the dogs' food with their salaries. Billy works at Marsh, Steve at Mr. D's. \nThey sure eat a lot of dog food, Billy said. \nRon and Diana discovered that Billy and Steve were mildly mentally handicapped when each son was around a year old. Their development began to lag behind children around their age. But the couple never found out why until 10 years ago, when tests revealed fragile X syndrome as the cause. \n If Ron could turn back time, if he could known in advance about his sons' conditions, he said he would not have done anything differently. He is "an old-fashioned conservative" who does not believe in abortion. \n "Whatever is God's will is God's will, and we'll take care of them no matter what," he said. "Whatever kind of a handicap or hardship it is, we love them." \nThe couple never sheltered their sons or hid them, he added. Whatever Ron and Diana did, Billy and Steve did, too. \n"I never felt like there was a limit," Diana said.\nMany Loves\nThe two brothers are "like night and day," said Natalie Wisniewski, assistant office manager at Marsh. Wisniewski worked with Steve for several years at Mr. D's before she came to Marsh. She has worked with Billy for the last year.\nBilly is the shy one, seldom looking people in the eye when he talks to them, sometimes squinting when he speaks. He loves caps, owning about 19 of them. There is always one snug on his head. \nWhere Billy is reserved, Steve is flamboyant. Steve is loud and cheerful -- always animated, always talking. His eyes peer through thick plastic glasses. A small dark green stud ringed with gold adorns his left ear.\nSteve is friendly, peppering his greetings with "sweetheart," "barbie doll" or "baby." But "dear" is his favorite.\n"I'm a flirt," he said.\nBoth Billy and Steve love sports. Every Sunday afternoon, the sounds of basketballs slapping on the dark orange floor filled the brick walls of the gymnasium at the Banneker Community Center. \nBilly practices with the Monroe Country Cutters, the higher functioning Bloomington Special Olympics basketball team that Ron coaches. Steve plays for the lower functioning team, the Bloomington Raptors. \nBilly and Steve play more than just basketball. They also compete in a variety of Special Olympic events all year round, from golf to softball to bowling.\n Billy is a big IU basketball fan. Steve roots for IU as well, except when they play Purdue -- he is a Purdue supporter first. \n They are both big fans of Bloomington High School North football and basketball and are celebrities at games, by many accounts. When they walk in wearing their maroon North T-shirts and Cougar plastic buttons, waves flutter in their direction and shouts of "Hi Billy!" and "Hi Stevie!" shoot their way. Billy usually stands in one corner, chatting with the policemen on duty, Allen said. Sometimes, Ron added, he even rides with them to games.\nSteve is North's auxiliary cheerleader -- always in the front row, cheering and clapping, Allen said. All the cheerleaders know him; some of them even greet him with hugs.\nBut Cartoon Network, not ESPN, remains their favorite channel. The two especially love "Popeye" and "The Flintstones." \n Steve never misses "The Price is Right." He tapes it everyday. He also loves "Wheel of Fortune" -- "anything where they clap," Allen said. He likes to clap and sing. \nWhen the record player in his room belted out "Circles" by Captain and Tennile, Steve joined in.\n"Beautiful circle, beautiful circle, wonderful circle…" he sang loudly, shaking his head from side to side.\nBilly loves to dance, especially with the ladies at Marsh Christmas parties, said Susie Atkins, a cashier who has worked with Billy the five years he has been a sacker at Marsh.\n"This is the sweetest young man"\nAt Marsh, some of the staff are guarded and unsure when talking to Billy. But Atkins' affection for Billy is evident in the tenderness in her eyes and the warmth in her smiles.\nVerner Ulmet, a service clerk, said some people are afraid of Billy because they can tell he has a disability.\n"He's gentle as a mouse," Ulmet said.\nBilly has a refrain at work: "You got to do it all, don't you." As he walked around the store, he fired variants of it at colleagues the way some people say "Hi." He also calls everyone a "long-eared varmint" or "a one-eyed galoot," two phrases Diana said he picked up from Yosemite Sam in "Bugs Bunny." \n Every time Billy wins a Special Olympics medal, he wears it to work for several weeks and talks about it for days, Ulmet said. But if someone asks him about it after that, he gets bashful. \nSometimes, as Billy is hauling in carts from the parking lot and finds a stray cart left in a lot, he gets upset, Ulmet said. Pointing to the culprits' cars as they are driving off, he will yell, "Where do they think they're going?"\nFour days a week, after work, Billy takes the Bloomington Transit buses downtown, Diana said. Sometimes, he rides to the mall. He loves meeting people on the bus. As Billy rides, he chews tobacco, what he calls "worm dirt." The joy is in the ride itself, Ron said, which can last one to three hours. \nWhere Billy is slow and meticulous at work, Steve is quick and efficient.\nCarole Leyda, whose groceries Steve was bagging, called out, "How are you doing, Stevie?\n"Fine, sweetheart," Steve replied.\nAs he bagged the groceries, he muttered, "It's work time … Time to work, not to play." Sometimes, he groans. \nThen with the bags neatly piled onto the gray metal cart, Steve pointed at a white Toyota Avalon out in the parking lot. \n"It's to that car right there, isn't it?" he asked Leyda.\nLeyda showed Steve her car once many years ago. He has remembered it ever since, she said.\n"He is the most wonderful person to come in to," Leyda said. "He's just got the best attitude; he's always in a good mood. He's a great worker."\nAs he walked off after packing Leyda's groceries in the trunk of her car, Leyda called out, "Bye!"\nBending his head back, Steve shouted, "Bye bye, sweetheart!"\nElizabeth King made sure she was in Steve's checkout line.\n"This is the sweetest young man. Plus he works like a Trojan. We tease him terribly," King said.\n"I'm so glad I saw you today," King said to Steve. "I missed you on the weekends."\nSpirit of Sport Friday and Saturday at the SRSC and HPER will benefit Special Olympics Indiana and Special Olympians like Billy and Steve McGovern.