World T.E.A.M. Sports at 20 Years October 2013 | Page 6

they’d given up their chance. But the Special Olympians didn’t think
there was any issue in that at all.
We also had a fellow by the name of David
Hepernin go on the trip. David Hepernin was a
beautiful athlete, 35-years-old and our oldest athlete,
but he was an elective mute. He’s a very friendly
person, a very happy person, but he didn’t talk. His
parents didn’t know why he didn’t talk. He knew the
words, and he was not so retarded that he couldn’t.
He just would not talk. He was interviewed for the
film. He wouldn’t talk. We get to the top of Mount
Kilimanjaro, and we’re on our way down and he
starts saying things, like he’s proud of himself.
We get to the bottom of the mountain and he’s
actually saying sentences – that he’s proud, and he’s
happy to have been part of the team. David Hepernin, at age 35 is
coming out of his shell, because of doing something and being part of
a team that he had not been part of before. He was part of a combined
team of both able-bodied and disabled athletes, and he was pleased
about that.
This was in February 1991. By June, he was speaking in complete
sentences and telling his story to small groups. By November, he was
an outreach spokesperson for California Special Olympics and he has
been for the last 17 years. Just absolutely amazing.
But the most amazing part of that story didn’t happen on the
mountain, it happened after the mountain. The television program
was shown, it was well done, not that I had anything to do with it.
CBS did a great job, and David Breashears did a great job. It won an

Emmy award as the top sports film of 1990. As a result, the Million
Dollar Round Table invited me and our athletes and some of our
coaches to New Orleans in 1991 for the Million Dollar Round Table
meeting. And at that meeting, after giving a little example of what was
done on the mountain, the curtain pulled back and our 12 athletes
appeared before the 7,000 to 8,000 people at the New Orleans
convention hall and
received a seven minute
standing ovation. I know
that Round Table crowds
are very happy, very
enthusiastic and
welcoming of participants
and individuals on the
program. But seven
minutes. It’s taped… it just
went on and on and on.
The validation given to
these athletes and two of
these 12 was the most
amazing thing that’s ever
happened to me – other
The AXA World Ride in 1995 was challenging for the
than the birth of two
children and my marriage core riders. World T.E.A.M. Sports archive photograph.
date. It was June 24, 1991,
the finest day of my life. And it’s all to do with the Million Dollar
Round Table, and the welcoming spirit offered to these athletes.