Off the Short Bus

"I'm in a position in my life right now where it's simple, either you're an asset or you're a liability. With my son, there's no question, I want the best for him. And if you're not giving him that and you're not getting out of the way for people that can do that, you and I are going to have problems."

Right now, the boy is in a good place. He's at a high school where his principal and his teachers are responsive to all his needs. Every week, Fleming says, his son's teachers brief him on the boy's progress. Fleming has put the same enthusiasm he directed toward the Special Olympics into helping the school: Not long ago he convinced a local business to donate $17,000 in computer equipment to the special education department.

Mark Graham

Mark Graham

"It was amazing seeing how those kids felt in those uniforms and shoes versus what they had," Fleming says. "And I realized something, these kids can do more if you push them."

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• Lewisville
• Jim Domer
• Special Olympics International
• Special Olympics
• Olympic Games

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Sometimes, when he gets off work early, he heads over to Hebron High to watch his son play football. He can't believe how well the boy is progressing. And the best part is that his teammates consider him one of their own.

He insists that he wants nothing more to do with the Special Olympics, but sometimes when the anger over his suspension subsides, when he remembers how things were in the beginning, you have to wonder.

"I remember the first team I ever coached and that girl came up to me and never had a decent pair of shoes and she cried because I got her a pair. I been with a girl last year, I'll never forget this. She never got a hit. All the games, all the practices, she never got a hit. We go to state games, two people on base, two outs, she got a double, and I went crazy.

"All that work you do, you don't think they can do it, and every time they step up."

The old Marine, the man known for yelling and trash talk, pauses to compose himself. "I get worked up just thinking about it," he says. "For these kids, it was the first time they had ever been treated like real athletes. And the saddest part is, because of a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and parents who didn't get what we were trying to do, they're never going to get to feel that again. We could've created something beautiful."