Studying sports and disability, he laid the groundwork for the Special Olympics

On a hot July day in 1968, 1,000 young athletes with intellectual disabilities competed at Soldier Field in Chicago in running, jumping, throwing, and swimming. The inaugural Special Olympics International Summer Games marked a shift toward inclusion when many children with special needs were kept at home or placed in institutions. Eunice Kennedy Shriver publicly spearheaded the event shortly after Robert F. Kennedy’s death, with support from physical education teachers, disabilities experts, and physiologists. Frank Hayden’s research helped show that children with intellectual disabilities were not incapable, but were limited by lack of opportunity. With guidance and encouragement, participants could improve physical fitness and gain social skills and confidence.

"Few spectators were there to witness the inaugural Special Olympics International Summer Games. But the competitors, all boys and girls with intellectual disabilities, helped usher in a new and more inclusive era in sports, at a time when children with special needs were often locked away at home or shipped off to institutions."

"For years, parents and educators had believed that young people with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities were incapable of playing sports or engaging in physical activities. Dr. Hayden helped dispel that myth, showing that kids with special needs were hindered mainly by lack of opportunity. With guidance and encouragement, he argued, they could see improvement in physical fitness while also gaining social skills and confidence."

""My idea wasn't to find the fastest runner with an intellectual disability," he said. "It was to make them fitter and healthier, so they have the opportunity to live their potential.""

"Dr. Hayden, who spent years championing the Special Olympics and spreading the movement to countries around the world - a quest that led him to call himself "the Billy Graham of the Special Olympics" - died May 16 at 96. His death, in Oakville, Ontario, was confirmed by Canada's Special Olympics organization, which said his "research was the spark that ignited the Special Olympics movement.""

Read at The Washington Post