World T.E.A.M. Sports at 20 Years October 2013 | Page 4

and it tends to be sort of celebrity driven. The California Special
Olympics was no different than that. We would go to meetings and
have fund raisers, but it seemed like there was an awful lot of
attention based on celebrities, and who was there – not the athletes.
I was not interested in meeting Sheryl Crow or something (well
actually, I would be interested in meeting Sheryl Crow if anyone
knows her), but I was really more interested in working with the
athletes. I found that when we did things together, it was a magical
experience. The athlete felt validated and the person, the coach, the socalled able-bodied coach, felt better about what they were doing.
A year or so later, because I’d always wanted to ride a bicycle
across the United States, I organized something called Ride Across
America. We took 25 mentally retarded young adults, and in five
stages, rode from Newport Beach to Mesa, Mesa to El Paso, El Paso to
Austin, Austin to New Orleans, and then finally the last stage into
Jacksonville Beach, Florida. It was a phenomenal experience. We were
told we shouldn’t do this, because people with retardation should not
be out on highways – it was dangerous. All of that was true, but in 26
days we rode 2,650 miles, 100 miles a day. Every day was an absolute
winner. Every day was dynamite. The way these young people came
alive.
We would take a 100 mile day, and separate it into ten mile
segments. We’d have a support van that would go up five miles, and
stop, so as we rode by the van, we knew we had another five miles to
our rest stop. We’d get to the rest stop, we’d have sandwiches,
Gatorade, Rocky would play, Chariots of Fire would play, we’d have a
celebration and everybody that made that stage got a pin. Then we’d
do another 10 miles.

Every day was like a joyous celebration going across the country.
We were doing this not to raise money, but to raise awareness as to
the capabilities of mentally retarded young people. There was a lot of
press attention given to this, and we were put on Good Morning,
America. On Good Morning, America there
was a feed from New York into Jacksonville,
and David Hartman was the host in those days.
We had three people, myself and two of our
athletes. One of the athletes was our most
spirited rider, a young girl named Peggy Ann
Kane. Peggy Ann Kane was being interviewed
and David Hartman asked her among other
things, “Well, Peggy Ann Kane,” because that’s
how she wanted to be addressed, “how do you
feel about this ride?” She said “Mr. David James Hartman I feel
important.” Then he asked her why she felt important? And she said
“Only important people, sir, get on television. Right now I’m on
television, so therefore, sir, I must be important.”
That was a culmination of our trip. There was importance. Five
people of the 25 on this particular trip were wards of the state of
California. They had not gotten validation once in their life. Three
people had never been in a restaurant before. We were taking a group
of people and it was an incredible journey for them to be validated to
be seen as part of society. As coaches, we saw the world in a whole
different way. We saw that anyone can accomplish anything if you
work together as a team.
Unfortunately, David Hartman then turned to me and said, “Mr.
Benson, you must be pleased with this success. What are you going to