You gotta work your way up, and you just keep at it. And once you get there, it’s gonna make you feel a lot better.
Steven Kryspin’s face is beet-red, lips pursed. His eyes squint behind his glasses as he grips a barbell, slowly lowering it toward his body.
“Press, press, press!” a coach chants. “C’mon, Steve! There you go!”
As Kryspin finishes his bench press, a tattoo becomes visible on his upper arm. The inked image is a paragon of strength — an eagle lifting barbells. It’s an image that represents his passions. One is being an Eagle Scout. Another, powerlifting.
Kryspin, 27, is one of six athletes on New Jersey’s powerlifting team, one of more than 250 athletes from the state who will compete among 3,500 at the Special Olympics USA Games, which begin in Mercer County this week after an opening ceremony tonight in Newark. For Kryspin and other special athletes, the competition is a dream fulfilled, before even a single point is tallied or medal decided.
While Kryspin has made it to Special Olympics New Jersey before, this is the first time he will participate in the national games, which are held once every four years.
“I wanted to be picked for the longest time,” he says in an eager voice.
On a recent Saturday morning at the Special Olympics New Jersey Sports Complex in Lawrenceville, he spent several hours practicing his deadlift, bench press, and squat alongside teammates. Written on the walls of the gym are the words: “Believe. Commit. Focus. Spirit. Succeed. Strength. Dream.” In the days before the games, Kryspin was working to slap on his game face — “Trying to get my mind set,” he says. But he also thinks of his fellow lifters. “It’s a team effort,” he adds. “I like to encourage people to do better. It’s always good to give people confidence.”
That’s exactly what powerlifting does for Kryspin, he says. “It gives me a lot of courage.”
A special athlete for 16 years, Kryspin can deadlift up to 510 pounds. At a state meet this spring, he managed 485 pounds in the event, which requires him to bend down and hoist a barbell from a standing position.
“It’s the most I ever lifted in competition,” he says, even though he knows he’s capable of doing more.
“Last year he set his sights on 500 and he got it,” says his father, John Kryspin, of Hopatcong. He helps coach his son, who lives on his own in a supported-living facility in Florham Park. “He’s a lot more outgoing than I am,” he says. “He likes an audience. It really fires him up.”
Steven Kryspin has worked at Trader Joe’s for two years and says his co-workers rang the store cowbell to celebrate his achievement, presenting him with a cake. Powerlifting, says the younger Kryspin, is all about a slow build, and constant training.
“You gotta work your way up, and you just keep at it,” he says. “And once you get there, it’s gonna make you feel a lot better.”
Olympic celebrities
Because New Jersey is hosting the USA Games, Bloomfield special athletes Delon and Derrick Noble now find themselves on a Wheaties box. Fellow New Jerseyan Michael Reed of Somerset, who plays basketball, is on the front, and the 21-year-old twin brothers are on the back, with a group of other athletes.
“I look good,” says Delon. He and his brother, who are graduating from high school, just celebrated their prom and will compete in flag football next week. “I’m just so happy we’re going to go all the way,” says Derrick, who works at ShopRite, which is selling the limited edition cereal boxes. “Our goal is to win this for Jersey.”
Soccer player Zachary Stroik has also been something of a Special Olympics spokesman. He knows he’ll be meeting athletes from all over the country this week, exchanging pins and greetings. But a lot of them will be seeing his face for another reason — he’ll appear in a video played in buses transporting the athletes. Part of the athlete delegation that asked Gov. Chris Christie to serve as honorary chair of the games, Stroik, 24, lives in Millstone Township.
“They don’t have a special-needs club,” he says, matter-of-factly. “That’s why I do Special Olympics.” Doing his best — as a goalie, he likes “stopping all the shots,” he says — is the aim. But so is playing host to the visiting athletes.
“It means making new friends, trying new things,” Stroik says, so even as he competes, he’ll wear a friendly face. “We’re still going to try to go win all the medals,” he says. “So not too friendly.” In 2010, he won a bronze medal in soccer at the Special Olympics USA Games in Lincoln, Neb. In the fall, Stroik will attend The College of New Jersey’s Career & Community Studies program, designed for intellectually disabled students.
Outside of SONJ headquarters in Lawrenceville, he lines up for quick run around the soccer field with his nine teammates, who have made the trip from various counties.
“Special Olympics gave him a peer group,” says his mother, Joan Stroik. “True friends, among the athletes and among the coaches.”
The same holds true for the parents of athletes, who gather to watch their sons play. “It’s a very vibrant social network,” says his father, John Stroik. One where inclusion means you don’t have to be a special athlete to play a game.
Unified sports
At practice for Team New Jersey Bocce — one of the 16 sports included in the national games — gameplay is unified, so traditional Special Olympics athletes and “unified partners,” who aren’t special athletes, are on the same team.
Both sets of players scatter around the space next to the soccer field at the Lawrenceville facility, where each takes a turn tossing multicolored balls down a narrow pitch.
Special Olympics athletes must have some intellectual disability, which may include Down syndrome, for instance, or autism, while unified partners who play alongside them do not.
Unified partner David Cipriano of Kendall Park has been playing bocce since he was a child. An analyst for the State Police, he normally officiates bocce during Special Olympics New Jersey games. “A lot of people here received gold medals,” he says, looking at his teammates.
Elaine Westgate of Howell coaches the bocce team. Though she’s been involved with Special Olympics for 25 years, the coach says she often finds herself “in amazement and awe of the spirit of the athletes. They never quit,” says Westgate, “but they play with compassion.”
One special athlete on the bocce team is Ellen Engels, 59.
Fewer than 35 percent of athletes and unified partners playing in the games are female. “This has been my life’s dream since I was a child,” she says, standing near the bocce court, gripping her walker.
Part of Special Olympics since she was 17, Engels, who lives in East Rutherford, got back into competition with bocce 11 years ago, after she left her job at Hackensack University Medical Center, where she worked in the kitchen delivering trays to patients. After practice, she and her husband of 16 years, Wes (“I don’t know how we put up with each other,” she muses), join in on a team picnic, a welcome break from the oppressive afternoon sun.
“I love every five minutes of it,” she says, adding that for her, the games are less about scored points than laughing and socializing. She calls bocce a mood-soother. “It makes me calm my nerves down,” she says. “It helps me with my concentration.”
Her teammate, special athlete Joseph Esposito, 38, of Jackson, puts his motivation for bocce thusly:
“I like playing with my friends.” Yet a sense of competition is not lost on him, either.
“I just like to bring home the gold,” he says. “That’s all.”