When Scott Otterbein leaves work as operations director at HRSA’s Philadelphia regional office, he can often be found coaching track and field events for Special Olympics athletes in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County.

Otterbein was recruited as a Special Olympics coach years ago after watching his middle daughter, Lauren, then 9 and born with Down Syndrome, during track practice. “One of the coaches, always in need of help, asked me to ‘Come hold this watch for a while,’” he remembered.

“I was a runner in high school,” he said, “so I decided to get involved.” Otterbein has been a head coach and, since 2003, a certified coach with Special Olympics. This year he added the responsibility of coordinating training for other coaches.

Scott Otterbein, center, with three of his young Special Olympics athletes and field event coach, Vince Flocco, far right.

Athletes Aaron Armstead, left, and Robert Deckert at a recent Special Olympics competition at Penn State.

Two of Coach Otterbein's younger athletes, Matthew Hollin and Houston McDaniel, get ready to run track.

From left: Mary Walsh, Kathy Prosperi and Otterbein's daughter Lauren receiving awards at county track meet.

Parents of his athletes frequently ask Otterbein where he gets his patience: “I tell them I get it from work,” he joked. And when asked the same question at work, where he oversees 15 members of a regional staff that runs grantee performance reviews in Region III, “I say I get it from coaching.”

“You’ve got to learn patience with the athletes, who might not listen to you because they don’t understand, or because they lack the skills to do what you want or the ability to communicate what concerns them.” Otterbein said.

The patience he cultivates working with Special Olympics athletes pays off at work, too. “Like my athletes,” he explained, “people you meet on the job have different stressors and different styles of communicating.”

At least half of his Special Olympics team shows up for twice-a-week practices, averaging about three hours weekly during the warmer months of the year. Practice has something for all athletes, ranging from running and shotputting to hurling lightweight plastic javelins with rubber tips and throwing a softball or tennis ball.

During the first few weeks of practice, coaches “pick the brains of parents to see what works with each athlete or find out from the athletes themselves what makes them tick,” Otterbein explained. “Several high-functioning athletes I can give a short lecture to, while others are nonverbal or can’t comprehend, so I just show them what to do, and they catch on.”

“Pretty much everybody can do one or more of the events,” he said. The key is to make sure all athletes are able to participate. A coach in another county, he remembered, had a brainstorm that allowed a blind runner to join a visually impaired runner in a race. The solution? The low-vision athlete ran loosely tethered alongside the blind runner to keep him from veering off the track.

Whatever event they take on, Otterbein said, he is rewarded when his athletes “overcome fear.” And with two or three competitions every spring and just as many each fall, there’s plenty of opportunity for that.

This year Otterbein added the responsibility of coaching an eight-person cross-country team. “Our athletes run over hills and grass just like any high school cross-country team,” he said proudly. “We compete at community 5-K races and in Special Olympics regional and state competitions.” Cross-country season lasts from early August through mid-November.

As for Lauren, now 23 and working full time, she’s still “very busy” with several Special Olympics sports, including track, soccer, basketball and swimming, “in that order,” said her dad.