By Steve Robinson | March 18, 2007 - 1:59 am
Posted in Category: Pekin Daily Times, Special Olympics

BasketballNORMAL – Kathy Jones, Mapleton, is considering making a comeback in Special Olympics basketball.

Although she once played basketball for another Special Olympics team in the area, illnesses had sidelined Jones from playing on a team for about a decade.

Saturday, Jones participated in a Basketball Skills competition, which was part of the annual Illinois Special Olympics State Basketball Tournament this weekend, which had games at both Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan.

Amber Daulbaugh, Southern Regional Manager of Sports Training, based in Highland, was overseeing the Basketball Skills competition at the south end of Horton Field House on the Illinois State campus, and explained that the event involves an athlete’s being able to do three things:

* Spot Shooting: To be able to shoot and make a basket from six points along the free throw lane. Having the ball either hit the rim or the backboard, would earn points in this competition, in addition to getting the ball in the basket.

* Wall Pass: To be able to throw the ball at a square taped to the wall. Getting the ball inside the square, or having the ball hit the edge of the square, and/or be able to catch the ball once it comes off the wall, would earn the participant points in this part of the competition.

*10 Meter Dribble: A timed event where a participant must continuously dribble the ball a short distance between two points.

Special OlympicsKathy, who turns 41 in May, successfully qualified for State in the Basketball Skills competition by getting a gold medal at the District level.

She is hoping to use the Basketball skills competition as a means to get back to playing on a team again like she did a decade ago for Heart of Illinois Special Recreation Association, based in Peoria.

Participating in the skills competition “is okay,” Kathy said. She looks to join a team “in September,” she explained, when Special Olympics groups like Pekin-based Illinois River Valley Special Recreation Association and HISRA in Peoria, begin gearing up for the basketball season once again.

Being able to play again would mean that Kathy would be on an IRVSRA team, just like her brother, Danny, who plays on the IRVSRA’s senior male team, which won a gold medal in their division after winning two games this weekend.

Kathy’s mother, Rhea Jones, said her daughter has been sidelined from playing basketball for about a decade, due to suffering from seizures after a bout with chicken pox.

Kathy admits that she has known about her being able to compete in the skills competition for two months and has been excited about it ever since finding out – so excited that she has literally had a suitcase ready to go ever since.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 1:59 am and is filed under Pekin Daily Times, Special Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply