NEW JERSEY COPS n JULY 2014
37
n BY DONNA WEAVER
he 2014 Torch Run to the opening
ceremonies of the Special
Olympics Games is a challenge fit
for an Olympian and a few good
men and women of law enforcement. The week leading up to the opening
ceremonies at the Prudential Center is an
undertaking that required six months of
planning and ultimate dedication, not to
mention a 239-page operations manual
for the final leg of the run alone.
Retired Port Authority Police Chief Bob
Belfiore has served as the New Jersey Law
Enforcement Torch Run director for 30
years, and earlier this year he handpicked
State PBA Legal Protection Plan Administrator Kevin Lyons along with 37 other law
enforcement officers
from across the state
to assist with planning
the Special Olympics
events. But while all
roads led to the Prudential Center for the
national games opening ceremonies, there
was still much New
Jersey pavement to
pound for the runners in the name of the
annual Torch Run.
Six athletes and 52 runners – cops from
around the country – began the week by
making an appearance on Fox TV’s Fox
and Friends and then swung by Toys“R”Us
in nearby Times Square. They then headed downtown to Battery Park, the Statue of
Liberty and Ground Zero for an emotional visit to the 9/11 Museum.
“I got to see it for the first time,” Lyons
said. “It was a very somber event for the
law enforcement officers from the Midwest. A lot of them had never been to New
York and only saw 9/11 on TV. It was a real
moving time.”
The next day, runners got set to make
the trek to the Prudential Center. Some left
from the north; a second group ran from
Philadelphia; and Lyons – the “beach guy”
– and the last group of runners headed
south to Wildwood to take the torch from
there.
“We figured this way we could cover as
much of the state as possible,” Lyons
explained.
Lyons and Ben Fravel, a law enforce-
T
Photo by
the Kramers
It Keeps You Running
PBA members from across the state helped make the annual
Torch Run for Special Olympics one for the record books
Photo by Jeff Ehlers
ment officer from Virginia, were tasked
with leap-frogging ahead of the runners to
set up presentations at each venue the run
would hit. Venues were centered around
towns that supported the Special Olympics
Games, including Wildwood and Seaside
Heights that host annual Polar Bear Plunge
events, and Stockton College in Atlantic
County’s Galloway Township.
“By the time we ended up in Holmdel,
there were kids lining up in front of the
police station,” Lyons recalled. “I give them
a lot of credit. They really nailed it and took
ownership of it. They had t-shirts made
with the Special Olympics logo.”
Runners returned to East Brunswick the
next day, congregating at High Point Stadium at Rutgers where Scarlet Knights Football Coach Kyle Flood spoke to the
participants.
“He was extremely dynamic. I can see
why he’s the coach,” Lyons said about
Flood, who has several members of his
family that work in law enforcement.
All the legs of the Torch Run met for
lunch at the Trenton Thunder’s Arm &
Hammer Park. The next morning, while
athletes started to arrive at Trenton’s Mercer County Airport in Cessna corporate
jets, the run started in Princeton. Concurrently, work continued at The College of
New Jersey and Ryder University to set up
for the impending games.
“The rehearsal was really interesting,”
Lyons described. “We were at the stadium
and all the runners and police officers from
each state walked in with their delegation.
Being underneath the Prudential Center
for that amount of time, it was like the hallways and tunnels were a sea of humanity.”
Featuring the dropping of a large cauldron, the opening ceremonies launched as
New Jersey State Corrections Sergeant
Beth Westrich ran in with the torch along
with six athletes.
Finally, Lyons was able to break off the
next day and headed to the games, doing
security and helping out wherever he
could.
“The competition I saw was fierce,” he
observed. “I was taken aback by the level of
skill at the games.” d