Getting to the Special Olympics a stroke at a time

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Fourteen-year-old Rose Brass wasn't always the championship swimmer that she is today.

"She tried hockey first of all, then soccer, gymnastics, dancing, and finally swimming," said Giff Brass of his daughter's athletic endeavors. "Swimming seems to be her thing."

Her mother Jean agreed with her husband, adding, "When she first started swimming, her dad would take her to the pool, get her in the water and stuff. She was two when she started.

"She's been in the water for a long time. A little water baby, they all call her, because she so likes the water," Jean added.

Thanks to one of her teachers, Rose joined the Special Olympics Swimming Program this fall, an avenue her parents were not aware of.

"This is her first year with Special O," said Jean. "It was actually because of an educational consultant, who moved her from the mainstream classroom into a specialized one. Her daughter also competed in Special O, and she just informed us of what was out there. We had no idea that [Rose] would qualify. I always thought Special Olympics was for [people with] severe physical disability. I didn't realize that she would fit into this category."

That was in the fall of 1999. The Special Olympics' swim coach, Cathy Hoffman, recognized Rose's potential, and recommended her to another team.

"Her coach for the Special Olympics team thought that Rose's talent would exceed the capabilities of the team she had there, and then she gave us the number of Gord Shields," head coach of the Prince Albert Sharks Swim Club.

"Her coach brought her here," said Shields, "and we had her try out at a practice and see what we thought. We had a chance to meet the parents and talk to the parents about the program and what we have to offer, and what benefits we would get out of participating in the program, and so it has carried on since then.

"That was about in January of this year."

The end result of the tryout in the New Year was that Rose earned herself a spot on the Sharks' Swim Team.

Coach Maureen Strathdee, who is also a triathlete and a high school teacher, said, "Rose is a really fun student to have in the class. She tries hard, she wants to learn, and is anxious to do well. She likes to do well, so in that aspect, it's nice to coach someone who is always looking to improve and do well."

Coach Shields said Rose listens, "and she does pick things up fairly quickly. She has the ability to develop because she does take what the coaches have instructed her and put it into practice with what she's doing in the water with her technique."

In a few short months, Rose has learned a lot about technique and has also improved her speed, said Strathdee.

"Rose has really improved because her freestyle speed is getting better and she knew the stroke quite well. For example, she's picked up the technique for the butterfly this year, which is a really hard stroke to learn. So as well as getting faster on the strokes that she did know, she was able to learn some more strokes, and also the racing turns, the starts, relays, and being part of a team."

Then came Rose's first swim meet with Special Olympics, and everyone - including Rose - was in for a huge surprise.

"I think she surprised the coaches, too," said Jean Brass. "They just timed her once, and realized they had never timed her before, so I think that she surprised them too that she already had qualified (for the Canadian ParOlympic Team trials). Nobody was prepared for it, it was sort of 'we've got this kid who can make it,' and no one knew."

Thanks to some last-minute fund-raising done on Rose's behalf by the Special Olympics and the Shriners of Prince Albert, Rose was able to try out for a spot on the Canadian ParOlympic team that will be competing in the World ParOlympic Summer Games in Sydney, Australia. The ParOlympic games immediately follow the main Olympic Games this September.

"They raised the money," said Jean Brass on Rose's first day of the team tryouts in Montreal. "It was pretty fast. We wre told Wednesday and had to leave Thursday."

Her first event on May 29 was the 100 metre backstroke, and she surprised many people there.

"She took just about 20 minutes off her backstroke time," said Jean in a phone interview that evening. "She made it through all the heats and made it right to the final."