Louisville flag football team to compete in Special Olympics national championship

By Yourwellness Last updated Jul 21, 2014 16

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LOUISVILLE Ky. (WDRB) — A Louisville flag football team is traveling to New Jersey to compete for a National Championship.

WDRB’s Sterling Riggs found out that sometimes in the game of life, wins and losses don’t matter, it’s the experience that we cherish forever.

These football players are getting taped up, laced up and coached up for the biggest game of their lives. At the Louisville Flyers practice, you won’t see precision pass routes, receivers might drop a catchable ball and the quarterback overthrows a receiver every now in then.

But in their classification, the Louisville Flyers are the best team in Kentucky. As a matter of fact, they are back to back Special Olympics state champions.

“Some understand better than others. They are very intelligent; it just takes them longer to learn things,” said coach Danny Lane.

The recent state championship qualified the team to play in the Special Olympics USA Games in New Jersey. The players range in age from 18 to 46.

As the senior member on the team, 46-year old running back James Brown always offers leadership and encouragement to his teammates. “I tell them let’s go ahead and win the whole thing. You only enjoy your life onetime. Let’s go ahead and win and get it over with,” said Brown.

“It makes me feel good. I threw 5 touchdown passes in three games at regional. It feels like being Brett Favre,” said quarterback Alexander Gamble.

The Flyers practice three times a week at Seneca High School against a group of volunteers from KFC Yum Brands. The volunteers push the athletes to be the best they can on the field.

But at the end of the day, the coach’s message to his players going into the biggest game of their lives is not to go out and score more points than the other team, it’s simply this… “They like to win like everybody else, but if they’ve played one down of football, they’ve won,” said Lane.

The team raised $18,000 through private fundraising events to attend the 2014 Special Olympics National Games. To help the team in the future, you can find more information listed on the team website.