Star athletes Loretta Claiborne, Dan McCoy to highlight Unified Sports event at Lauri Ann West Community Center

An afternoon of perseverance and inclusivity is slated Saturday at the Lauri Ann West Community Center in O’Hara.

The center, as part of the Sue Golier Memorial Speaker Series, will feature remarks from athlete and Special Olympics Hall of Famer Loretta Claiborne and Dan McCoy, a paralympic gold medalist and a trainer at the center.

It also will feature a panel discussion with parents and student participants from Fox Chapel Area High School’s Unified Sports, as well as a friendly flag football game in the gym with the Unified Sports athletes.

Experience ‘blessing in disguise’ for world-class athlete

Loretta Claiborne, 71, of York was born partially blind and intellectually challenged. She was unable to walk or talk until the age of four.

But that did not stop her from becoming an accomplished athlete and runner.

She has completed 26 marathons — twice placing among the top 100 women in the Boston Marathon. She has won medals in dozens of Special Olympics Worlds events and holds the current women’s record in her age group for the 5000 meters.

It all started, she said, when she was a student at William Penn High School in York City and wanted to participate in track, following in her brother’s footsteps. She’d often faced adversity from her peers due to her disability.

In 1970, a counselor suggested she participate in Special Olympics.

“It was a blessing in disguise, and it’s still a blessing for all people who are differently abled, not just here in our country but all over the world,” she said.

Her perseverance and success in Special Olympics have netted her an ESPY Arthur Ashe Award for Courage in 1996, a TV film “The Loretta Claiborne Story” and a biography “In Her Stride.”

She said she wanted to join the Special Olympics to be part of a team. Now, she advocates for all athletes in the program.

Claiborne said she was excited to meet and participate with the Fox Chapel Unified Sports team. She said that in unified sports, people have the ability to learn from those with different abilities.

Outside of running, Claiborne holds a fourth-degree black belt in karate, can communicate in four languages including American Sign Language, and holds three honorary doctorate degrees from Quinnipiac and Villanova universities and York College of Pennsylvania.

When she gives talks, she encourages people to be the best that they can be.

“People with intellectual disabilities are no different than they are,” she said.

Dreams come true

McCoy, 30, of West Deer grew up watching ice hockey. A Fox Chapel native, he was born with spina bifida, a defect where a baby’s spinal cord fails to develop properly.

When he turned 5, McCoy learned about sled hockey from volunteers at the Shriners Hospital in Erie. Volunteers traveled to Pittsburgh twice a month to provide sports therapy for people with physical disabilities.

At the time, McCoy’s older brother, Andrew, was beginning to play stand-up hockey. Sled hockey, where players sit in sleds and propel themselves using smaller hockey sticks with picks on one end, was right up McCoy’s alley.

McCoy became one of the original players in the Mighty Penguins Sled Hockey organization, and he still competes with the senior team as a captain.

He watched the 2002 Salt Lake City Paralympic Games when he was 8 years old. A fellow Mighty Penguins player, Josh Wirt, was a member of the gold-medalist U.S. National Sled Hockey Team. That further inspired McCoy’s dream to pursue sled hockey and compete in the Paralympics like Wirt did.

“I got to hold his gold medal at the age of 8, and I said to my parents something to the effect of, ‘This is what I want to do,’ ” he said.

McCoy continued to work hard. At 14, he was selected for the U.S. Junior Sled Hockey Team. When he turned 16, he earned a spot on the U.S. National Sled Hockey team. He traveled to Sochi in 2014 and competed in the Paralympics sled hockey games, earning a gold.

After earning gold, McCoy began to ponder what was next for his career. A passion of health and fitness led him to consider a career in that field.

“I had amazing trainers over the years that sparked my passion for health and fitness,” he said.

In 2017, he earned a personal training certification from the American Council on Exercise after completing a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Pittsburgh. This spring, he received a Master of Science in Exercise Science and Wellness — Fitness and Performance, with a concentration in strength and conditioning.

He currently works as a personal trainer at the community center — which he said has been a “blessing and a dream come true.”

“It’s been cool to see folks that come in and have never worked out before,” he said. “It’s cool to see them gain more confidence as they go through.”

At the Saturday event, McCoy will discuss his experience at the Paralympics and in adaptive sports, how fitness has shaped his approach to life, and having a successful outlook on life while living with a disability. His mom, Angie, also will deliver remarks with McCoy.

He thanked his parents for the sacrifices they’ve made to help him accomplish his goals. He said he relied heavily on his Catholic faith to get him where he is today.

“The achievements, while I’m blessed to have them, it’s the journey there and sacrifices made to get there,” McCoy said.

Different, but all the same

Mark Rothert, executive director of the community center, said the upcoming event is a testament to the community center’s mission: to provide a safe place for all to learn, play and grow.”

“While we are all uniquely different, each of us with our own challenges, we can come together and share in activities and experiences where we come away with an appreciation that we are all very much the same,” he said.

Rothert, who is one of eight children, has a brother who has physical and emotional disabilities.

“Others might see him as different, but to us he is not,” Rothert said. “Growing up, we never treated him differently, and our expectations of him were the same as we had of ourselves. He participated in every activity we did.

“I think what people will take away from this event is that everyone regardless of their challenges or differences desires to feel and be treated as though they are not different.”