When Natalie Carey gave birth to Bryan 27 years ago, she and her husband decided they weren't going to treat him the way they'd seen others treat children with Down syndrome.

Olympic snowboarder Bryan Carey, 27, of Anchorage gets a hug and a kiss from his brother Mac Carey at Hilltop Ski Area on Monday. Special Olympics came about as a result of a change in attitudes toward exercise and would-be Special Olympians. (Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News)

At one time, parents put such children in institutions. Sometimes they participated in physical activities. Other times they didn't, because no one would engage them in play.

Bryan's life was not like that. From infancy, his parents massaged him and helped him exercise. His siblings played with him, as did their friends. When Bryan turned 8, he qualified to compete in the Special Olympics. He bowled, he did gymnastics, he swam, he lifted weights. This year at the 2001 World Winter Games, the gold-medal-winning Anchorage athlete will snowboard for Team U.S.A.

Special Olympics is only one of Bryan's physical endeavors. He joined the Dimond High School track team, wrestled with classmates and lettered in swimming. After graduating, he became the "CEO of Pots and Pans" at the Jewel Lake McDonald's restaurant.

Bryan sums up his passion in just four words: "My life is sport."

CHANGING MINDS

Bryan can say that because of what has happened in the last half-century. This week, an estimated 2,500 athletes from all over the world are participating in the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Anchorage. But just 40 years ago, the competition was only an idea in the mind of a Canadian physical education teacher studying children with disabilities.

Frank Hayden, now 71 and living in Burlington, Ontario, remembered when he came up with the idea in the 1960s. He had finished his master's and doctoral degrees in physical education and accepted a job teaching exercise physiology for the University of Toronto.

Carey adjusts his snowboard bindings before another run at Hilltop. (Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News)

Hayden's boss presented him with a proposition: If you're willing to do research on children with developmental disabilities, there might be a grant to cover half your salary. Hayden accepted and started his first of several studies.

Hayden discovered that children with mental disabilities fatigued 33 percent faster than children without disabilities. They carried 30 percent more fat and had half the strength, too. Overall, they were half as fit as children without disabilities matched for age and gender.

"The fact that they were weaker and fatigued faster probably wouldn't surprise anybody, but the amount of the difference was surprising," he said.

Was the poor physical fitness a result of their disabilities? Hayden showed there was more to it. He observed the lack of physical activity in the lives of children with disabilities. Parents would take them to and from school, and other kids often would not engage them in play.

People around these children accepted their physical deficiencies, saying, "Well, what would you expect?"

Hayden posed another question: If any of us went through life never playing childhood games, never engaging in sports or never skiing down a slope because everyone assumed we could never learn how, what would you expect?

"If our physical activity lifestyle was like that, we'd look just like them," he said.

Hayden concluded that the children's physical deficiencies had less to do with their disabilities and more to do with their lifestyles.

He continued his studies, trying to see if he could improve the fitness levels of children with mental disabilities such as autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. He discovered that if he injected physical activity into their lives, they'd respond. Hayden believed that he could close that physical fitness gap.

As the children became more fit, they became more capable at other tasks. They increased their work capacity and became more employable.

"They wouldn't fatigue so much on the job," Hayden said.

Hayden's ideas were not new. As early as the 1840s, a French physician named Edward Seguin considered it important to integrate physical fitness into an education program for people with disabilities.

More than a century later, Hayden came up with a way to promote physical activity as a large part of the lives of people with disabilities. His idea: a sports competition solely for people with special needs. They'd compete to improve their fitness and health.

But competition would also provide increased motivation, rewards and incentives to continue exercising, and the social benefits of meeting others along the way.

Hayden presented the idea in Canada first. While he was trying to muster support, he got a call from Eunice Kennedy Shriver in the United States. Shriver, who had a family member with mental disabilities, had heard about Hayden's plan and wanted to use it in the states.

With backing from the Kennedy family, the first international Special Olympics were held in 1968 at Soldier Field in Chicago.

RISKS AND BENEFITS

In recent years, other changes have made it increasingly possible for people with disabilities to be physically active.

People who were once institutionalized have been integrated into society. Children with disabilities have joined the public school system. Where people used to expect little, if any, physical activity of people with disabilities, federal law has stepped in to require it.

The law now known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act was passed in 1975 and reauthorized in the 1990s. It requires all children to be given a free public education regardless of disability. It also specifies that physical education must be made available to all children.

Pam Skogstad is one of seven instructors who teach adapted physical education to more than 400 Alaska students with developmental disabilities. The best way to teach these courses, Skogstad said, is to add "peer buddies," or children without mental disabilities, to a physical education class with students who have disabilities.

That allows children to empathize with their peers. It also allows children with disabilities to learn from others who are playing with them, Skogstad said.

Special Olympics snowboarder Bryan Carey, left, and his coach, Service High School senior Brian Holt, ride the chairlift at Hilltop Ski Area last week. (Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News)

Skogstad has tried integration in the community, too. About 10 of the more independent students with disabilities at Dimond High School work out at the Dimond Athletic Club twice a week, she said. The high school also has a dance program that mixes children with and without mental disabilities, she said.

As a result of integration, children with disabilities join sports teams. They go to dances. They make friends with students who attend regular education programs, she said.

Physical fitness has many benefits, Skogstad said, including providing a way for people with disabilities to feel better about themselves. It can supply essential exercise for those with health problems, such as children with Down syndrome, who are prone to weight gain and heart conditions, she said.

Natalie Carey said physical fitness is a necessity for Bryan, who's now trying to eat more healthfully as he trains.

"Without motivation, he would be sluggish," she said. "He would be heavy."

Coaches and teachers who work with athletes with disabilities must be aware of the medications athletes are taking, said Lucy Hope, who's coaching Alaska's alpine skiers competing in the World Winter Games.

Coaches must tend to each individual's needs. Hope said a coach should never let athletes with seizure disorders hop on a chairlift alone. And there are other precautions to keep in mind.

But, Skogstad said, the biggest risk for people with disabilities is no activity at all.

Hayden remembered people questioning his desire to create a large-scale competition for athletes with disabilities. They worried about how the athletes would react to losing.

"What are you going to do?" he said they asked him. "You're going to make them finish last in a race, and it's just going to dissolve them."

Hayden said athletes with disabilities react like other athletes to whatever place they finish. Plus, he said, winning a medal isn't the ultimate goal of the Games. By creating divisions in which athletes compete against others of similar abilities, the Special Olympics allow many people to win gold, silver and bronze medals.

Special Olympics is simply the showcase of the competitors' accomplishments. The real work, he said, is what the athletes do all year long in the world's gymnasiums, ski resorts and sports arenas.

"You'd be amazed at the skills these kids can acquire," Skogstad said. "It really saddens you to think this should have been done a long time ago."

Daily News health reporter Ann Potempa can be reached at apotempa@adn.com.