Be sure to look at our photo gallery highlighting some of this year’s participants.

From a distance, the group in the fields of Ames Middle School look like a group of friends, maybe an intramural sports team. They laugh; they smile; they poke fun at each other.

The group, despite appearances, is a team of Olympians gathered for their last practice.

“Soccer players out here,” Rachael Moran, their coach, yells above the chatter. “Make a big circle, make sure you can’t touch each other.”

They stretch.

A coach helps his athlete. “The thing about Matt is, everything is so flexible already.”

Matt Weitzel has Down’s syndrome. He is not much different from many of the other athletes gathered on the field who fall under the category of mental and physical disabilities.

“Stretch up to the stars,” instructs Moran, senior in child and family services. “Down to your toes.”

Mark Yashack stretches with the rest of the group.

“I’m going to kiss the grass!”

Many of the athletes come from group homes, Moran said. Some of them also live at home with family or alone. The Special Olympics welcomes everyone from age 8 to 80, boasts its Web site at www.soiowa.org.

Yashack, 41, lives with Mary Mohler, 31, in Ames.

Mary’s favorite moment of this year is a Special Olympics state basketball championship won in quadruple overtime.

This championship is also one of the proudest moments for Moran and Natalie Uhl, both students at Iowa State.

“We pushed them harder than I thought we could push them,” Moran said. “We just creamed them.”

On the field, the soccer players split up from the bocce ball players and those in soccer skills.

Toward Wilmoth Avenue, the bocce ball players start practicing.

A small yellow ball indicates where players shoot at their larger, colored balls.

“Roll your ball right to it,” a volunteer coaches.

Despite how close or far each athlete gets to the small yellow ball, a round of applause and a “good job” are handed out.

Uhl and Moran don’t think of what they do as jobs.

“I look at it as fun time,” Uhl, senior in anthropology, said. “If you have a bad or long day, you come here and get 15-20 hugs.”

The soccer players’ shouts can be heard all over the field.

“Woo!”

A goal is scored.

“It doesn’t count!” Mark shouts. Mark’s comments throughout the game make him sound like more of a coach than an athlete.

Mark knows all of the hand gestures to football and soccer, Moran said. The problem is, he always gets them mixed up.

Nick Folk, 24, said he has been involved in the Special Olympics for 15 years.

He is the only athlete running the pentathlon, which is the running long jump, the 100-meter dash, the 400-meter run, high jump and shot put.

“[Special Olympics] teaches that everybody wins,” he said. “Winning or losing is not important.”

His goal is to win a gold medal.

The pride shown by athletes the moment they receive medals and ribbons is what makes Moran’s job worth it, she said.

The job isn’t always easy, she said.

“[The hardest part] is seeing people go downhill,” she said. “You work so hard with them.”

The meaning of the Special Olympics to these coaches is much more than a few sporting events.

“For me it’s about giving them a chance to succeed and feel good about themselves,” Uhl said.

At the end of practice, Moran goes over what each athlete should wear and when and where they should be this weekend. She then announces there is a birthday boy present. She pulls Nate Strum out of his corner.

“How old Nate?”

“22.”

A chorus of “Happy Birthday” starts as Nate hides his face.

Dan Bellinghausen races the wheelchair race. In a story he wrote and gave to the Daily, he writes, “My favorite event to practice and participate in is the wheelchair race. I have a very fast chair of my own. Special Olympics are almost here, and I’m ready to compete and win. Good luck to all.”