SOMO News

Mike and Karen Garrison are parents to Colin, Missouri’s sole athlete competing at the 2019 World Games in Abu Dhabi, UAE. 

We’re wrapping up another busy day. We watched Colin and others on the bocce team compete in men’s singles. The level of competition is remarkable. So many of the athletes are able to place their ball precisely where it needs to be. Every roll we had our hearts in our throats.

Again Colin and his teammates had some very tough matches. Colin won one and lost one. Both were nail biters. We’re very proud at how Colin has done against some remarkable players. (Coach Larry. You’d be proud too and you’d be chewing your nails down like we are!). The other players had similar days. Tomorrow will wrap up singles and we’ll see how everyone does. We’re proud of how all of them are representing our country.

In between matches, we had time to watch some other events. We saw some great volleyball and quite a bit of basketball. The basketball team from Puerto Rico had an enthusiastic cheering section and the team played at a really high level. Great to watch!

While we were there, Tim Shriver and the young woman who is a unified ESPN broadcaster stopped by. You can tell how much parents and fans appreciate Tim and the work he does carrying on his mother’s legacy.

The team was done earlier today than previous days and were looking forward to some extra sleep. They’ve been running off of short night’s of sleep.

We have more competition to watch tomorrow and look forward to cheering on all of the great athletes. It’s inspiring to watch athletes overcoming the challenges they face as they rise above in competition. We saw 2 young men with cerebral palsy from Pakistan and Jamaica play remarkable bocce with beaming smiles. They’ve been given the opportunity to compete on the world stage because of a dream Eunice Shriver had and the countless people who’ve carried that dream for more than 50 years – including all of you who’ve supported Colin and so many others. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We’re so proud to be here representing all of you. We can hear you cheering from across the miles! Colin’s been reading the many great messages from you, grinning ear to ear!