Special Olympics basketball tourney canceled

The 40th annual Special Olympics basketball tournament of Northern California, scheduled for just two weeks from now, has been canceled due to miscommunication and major unexpected policy changes at Chico State.

“It’s disgusting that it’s come to this,” said Butte County’s Special Olympics Area Director Randall Stone, a volunteer faculty member of Chico State’s Kinesiology Department and a world-champion triathlete.

For decades his group has hosted the annual event on the first Sunday of March at Chico State’s Shurmer and Acker gyms as well as the gym at Chico High School. The all-day event is aimed at approximately 400 disabled children and adults from dozens of Northern California teams.

“All their lives they’ve been told they can’t play sports,” said Stone, a financial planner and real-estate developer. “Most of them live alone or in care homes, so this is a huge highlight in their lives.”

The athletes, he said, have been practicing for the event since early January. As he’s done in the past, Stone emailed a reservation request for the gyms last November. But he hit two major roadblocks this month, less than three weeks before the tournament was slated to take place.

On Tuesday, Feb. 14, he received a call from Kimberly Scott at Chico State’s Recreational Sports Department notifying him that the university had already reserved one of the two gyms for a volleyball tournament March 4.

The Special Olympics tournament, which must be played in a single day, requires both Chico State’s and Chico High’s gyms with seven courts due to the large number of teams, each playing three games. Stone was told that his group was never officially booked because of new budget-tightening rules that require those holding non-class-related events pay new fees and make a deposit—rules he hadn’t been made aware of.

“I thought it was ridiculous, as I’d been led to believe by everybody under the sun since November that our March 4 date would be fine,” Stone said.

Maggie Payne, interim dean of the College of Communication and Education, which includes kinesiology, confirmed the group was given verbal assurances.

Adding insult to injury, Stone received an email Friday, Feb. 17, saying the usual fee of approximately $350 for the tournament had skyrocketed to $3,800. He’d been able to avoid $897-a-day charges for practicing in Shurmer Gym—previously free—by booking his 14 practices leading up to the tournament in Chico High’s gym. The tournament price tag, however, seemed unavoidable.

“I feel like we’re being extorted,” he said. “We’re being asked to pay 10 times our previous rate, which is what the Monsanto Corp. would be charged to use the gyms.”

Stone said members of the Kinesiology Department had offered to waive the $3,800 fee this year if he could reschedule the tournament to April. Unfortunately, he said, that’s not possible because the tournament is a lead-up to the Special Olympics championships, which take place March 17 in Redding.

The new fees were also lamented by Rebecca Lytle, who chairs the Kinesiology Department.

“It’s something that’s happening all over campus, not just to the Special Olympics,” she said. “Everyone feels badly, and I’m afraid that they’ll never have their tournament on campus again because of it.”

In defense of university administrators, Lytle said that after receiving complaints the increased fee schedule is being reviewed to make it more affordable.

She said there is no one to blame but that the policy should change because it drives away groups like the Special Olympics, which provide a learning opportunity for hundreds of student volunteers.

Stone said the collateral damage looks even worse in light of Chico State President Paul Zingg’s early February challenge for students to perform 125,000 hours of volunteer service this year. Stone said that the basketball tournament results in 1,000 to 2,000 volunteer hours.

“I feel like the volunteers requested by President Zingg are being kicked off campus,” he said.

Zingg countered in an email, saying, “A scheduling error in no way compromises the University’s commitment to community service.”

In a press release issued Tuesday night (Feb. 21), Stone expressed his disappointment in the way things were handled.

“We hope to have solutions with Chico Unified School District in place for next year pending some rational conclusion with the University.”