GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Special Olympics swimming coaches Dale Burke and Rae Oshiro check statistics and records as athletes work out during training at the Kamehameha Schools pool last month. Coaches and athletes participated in a three-day training weekend at the school and were housed in dorms at the University of Hawaii so they could get familiar with each other as a dry run for Ireland.
3 Isle coaches
prove ‘Special’The volunteers will be going
with athletes to the Special
Olympics in Dublin, Ireland
Rae Oshiro volunteered to be a Special Olympics coach after she saw a friend teach disabled children to ride horses.
Dan Kohara became a volunteer coach after he made friends with the athletes through his job.
Dale Burke began coaching when his son, who has Down's Syndrome, joined the program 13 years ago.
"Volunteering made me tired, worn out and ... feeling great," Oshiro quotes from a poster that sums up her experience.
"That's exactly what it does! It's frustrating, but you feel like you accomplished something and made somebody smile," she says.
The three coaches will accompany 13 Hawaii athletes to this year's Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin, Ireland, in June. Hawaii's athletes are members of Team USA. This will be the first time the event, held every four years, will be held outside the United States.
Kohara will be the coach for track and field events; Oshiro and Burke are the swimming coaches.
In addition to coaching duties, the three also will have the added responsibility of caring for the Hawaii athletes for two-and-a-half weeks in a foreign country, said Dan Epstein, vice president of sports for Special Olympics.
"It's not just how good coaches they are," Epstein said, but their outstanding commitment, leadership and years of service made them natural choices for the special event in Dublin.
Kohara started working with clients of The ARC of Hilo, a program for the disabled, as a state Department of Human Services employee.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Special Olympics running coach Dan Kohara keeps time on athlete Peter Hickman during practice at the Kamehameha Schools track.
Many of them were also Special Olympics athletes, and he became a coach when someone asked him to help. Since then he hasn't missed a practice except for his son's wedding and coaches' clinics.
"Once you get involved, you don't want to stop," he said. "They are like my own sons and daughters."
He devotes four to six hours every Saturday to coach softball, track and field, and soccer, depending on the season.
"I treat them with love and affection. ... I look at their strengths. I won't push them beyond their ability and watch them very closely to be sure they won't over-exert themselves."
Kohara doesn't emphasize competition as much as he does teamwork.
"That way, everybody wins. Some like to win the Gold, but participation and camaraderie (are) the important thing(s) to most of them."
Oshiro has been a swimming coach for four years in Pearl City. She became acquainted with the program when she accompanied her sister, a Special Olympics powerlifting coach, and a pen pal, who helps disabled children ride horses.
"I saw how interested they were and what a wonderful time they had," said Oshiro, who is an assistant manager of a food distribution and meat processing company.
Working with the athletes has taught her humility, Oshiro said.
"I realize I have a lot to be thankful for and to be happy about. They take such a great pleasure in simple things. It's given me a different outlook on life.
"I'm less judgmental, more open-minded, definitely more patient and more creative. When someone doesn't understand directions, it makes me think from a different perspective."
Burke, a chaplain and a religion and communications instructor at Hawaii Pacific University, said his son has benefited from Special Olympics. His son made physical progress and increased his social circle, both "very important to his growth and development."
Burke said he sees the importance of disabled children getting the opportunity "to find their fullest potential" and wants to give someone else the same opportunity his 22-year-old son received when he was growing up.
His role as a coach is "very gratifying, very rewarding ... I love it."
To join Special Olympics, call 943-8808 or visit www.specialolympicshawaii.org.
