August 26, 2015
neighbors@stateportpilot.com
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Making her connection in L.A.
By Renee Spencer
Staff Writer
Oak Island resident donna
Mooneyham had the opportunity to travel to Southern
California for two weeks this
summer. While she spent a lot
of time by the pool, she wasn’t
there to relax.
Mooneyham was in Los Angeles as an aquatics coach and
mentor for the 2015 Special
Olympics World Games.
This was her second time as
a coach in the international
competition. The irst was at
the 2011 World Games, held in
Greece. Though Mooneyham
was better prepared for the
grueling schedule this time,
she was still left wondering
how time passed so quickly.
For aquatics athletes and
coaches, there are no days off.
Because of the competition in
their event, athletes are scheduled to compete every day of
the Games.
Though the regimen was
tough, Mooneyham said
the team really “gelled” and
worked hard.
“You’re all shoved together
to live for two weeks,” she
explained. “But we worked so
well together. You knew everybody had your back.”
While she admits she’s a little
biased, she said the aquatics
team had the best coaches and
athletes. They approached the
Games without focusing on
medals, instead concentrating
on motivating their swimmers
to achieve personal bests.
“Our big focus is on do your
best in competition, give it
your all and make improvements,” she said. “If you get
something to hang around
your neck, that’s great, but
what we’re looking for is for
you to do your best.”
She said the coaches also
stressed good sportsmanship.
“We drilled it every night,”
she said. “If somebody had a
poor display of sportsmanship,
they got a one-on-one conversation, because that was not
acceptable.”
She said that unlike the
Olympics, Special Olympics
does not promote a medal
competition among the different countries.
“They don’t make it a competition about who’s got the most
medals because of the disparity
in the number of athletes each
country has,” she said.
Because there is so little focus
on medals, Mooneyham didn’t
know how many the aquatics
team earned until after she
came home. But the focus on
personal improvement and
sportsmanship paid off; the
team brought home 86 medals.
The coaches worked to keep
the athletes focused during
the competition, but Mooneyham said the constant media
attention was overwhelming
at times. The experience was
much different than being in
Greece, where cell phone and
internet service was spotty at
best. She said in L.A., communication was “almost over
the top.”
“Our phones were blowing
up all day with updates from
Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat,” she said.
She noted that local and national media were on-hand for
the events, and ESPN provided
live coverage throughout the
Games.
“They were everywhere with
underwater cameras, on-topof-the water cameras,” she
said. “We had to keep telling
the athletes, ‘Don’t pay attention to the cameras.’”
While the constant focus did
pose challenges, Mooneyham
said she was glad to see the
athletes get the attention they
Oak Island resident donna Mooneyham, left, was assigned to mentor Special Olympics athlete Starr Kluttz, a fellow Tar Heel from Charlotte.
Kluttz, left, and Mooneyham were lag-wavers for the U.S., but the Special Olympics
World Games are more about international bonding than about which nation wins
the most medals and ribbons . (Photos contributed)
deserve. Many people back
home posted messages on
Mooneyham’s Facebook page
to say they saw her on ESPN.
“People who normally
wouldn’t know the games
existed were watching,” she
said. “L.A. did an awesome
job of public relations. It was
unbelievable.”
Mooneyham said she was
proud of her athletes and their
determination. Initially when
the team met for training
camp in October 2014, she was
assigned to coach and mentor Chris Willis, a swimmer
from Owensboro, Kentucky.
She said at irst, getting him to
focus was a challenge.
“He was under-motivated,”
she said.
To connect with him,
Mooneyham had to irst ind
common ground. She found it
in their love for NASCAR.
“We both liked the same
driver—Jeff Gordon,” she said.
One of Mooneyham’s former
East Carolina University students had worked as a pit crew
coach at Hendrick Motorsports. She reached out to him
to see if he might be able to get
Gordon to sign a shirt or a hat
and ship it to Willis in Kentucky as a way to increase his
motivation.
“He got Hendrick Motorsports to donate shoes, shirts,
hats—everything—from their
four drivers and they drove it
to Kentucky and delivered it to
Chris,” she said.
Mooneyham noted that
eventually she was assigned
to mentor a different athlete—
Starr Kluttz, from Charlotte.
But she maintained contact
with Willis and during their
time in L.A., he wanted to tell
her about getting the memorabilia from Hendrick Motorsports.
As Mooneyham watched
Willis deliver a performance
that was his personal best, a
message popped up on her
phone. It was from her former
student. He wanted to let her
know that Jeff Gordon had
seen the competition and
recorded a personal video message to Willis, congratulating
him on his performance.
“He stayed jazzed up about
that the whole time,” she recalled, adding that he really got
into the competition and began
having fun.
For the athletes, one of the
best parts of the Games is being able to meet fellow competitors from other countries
and trade pins and shirts. She
said when the time came to
swap items, Willis was in the
thick of it.
“The Chris I met in October
would never have traded shirts
with anybody, but there he
was,” she said.
This time, she said the teams
from Finland had the best
uniforms—the hot commodity
during closing ceremonies.
“I didn’t get any of their
stuff,” she said. “By that time, I
had already traded everything
I had!”
Mooneyham brought home
shirts and pins from Iceland,
Denmark, Honduras and
Venezuela.
While most of the trip was
focused on the competition,
Mooneyham did take some
time out for a little fun. She
recalled that the team visited Hollywood one day, and
she attended a special 10th
anniversary showing of “The
Ringer.” After the movie, the
coaches and athletes attended
a reception where she met the
stars of that movie, including
Johnny Knoxville.
They also had the opportunity to rub elbows with
swimming champion Michael
Phelps, as he was often poolside during the competition.
“He loves Special Olympics,”
Mooneyham said.
Mooneyham said the closing
ceremony was “one big party.”
“I wish everybody could
experience that just one time,”
she said.
While months went into preparing for the event, she feels it
‘If you get something to hang
around your
neck, that’s
great, but what
we’re looking for
is for you to do
your best.’
donna Mooneyham
was over “in a lash.”
“It was so awesome,” she
said. “It was like absolute
chaos. At one moment, you felt
like it was never going to end,
and then you were at closing
ceremonies saying, ‘Where did
the last 14 days go?’”
Mooneyham said it will take
her several months to process
all that happened in L.A. But
she hopes she’ll be able to do it
again in 2019.
An admittedly biased Mooneyham declared the aquatics team had the best coaches and mentors at the Games.