In a photo caption with a July 11 Style article, the boy identified as Aaron Ciaravino was actually Aaron Hyndman.
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Going the Distance
"People are always coming up to me asking about the Peace Corps, and Head Start and Uncle Jack and Uncle Bobby," Maria Shriver says. "But in equal numbers, they're asking about Special Olympics. And that's all about Mummy."
And "Mummy," who has been critically ill twice in the past decade, is unwilling to stop. Special Olympics, which she founded nearly 40 years ago, is now the world's largest sports program, serving 2.25 million people with intellectual disabilities in more than 150 countries. Her capacity to cajole and inspire is "unlimited. This is a worldwide movement that started in a back yard. That says it all," says Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the little brother, "Teddy" to her. And she's after him for something, too.
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Going the Distance Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver gives everyone a sporting chance. 
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"So Teddy called me this morning," she announces, settled into a chair in her living room, her son Tim next to her. It is three days before her birthday, and Shriver, not one to do many public interviews, has agreed to a rare one at her home. She proceeds to recount her conversation, giving him a melodramatic woe-is-me voice and herself her usual matter-of-fact one.
"Oh, I'm so exhausted!" she says, playing Teddy.
"What's the matter with you? It's only 8 in the morning!" she demands to know from him.
"Oh, I'm soooo tired," she says, mimicking him. "And now I have to go to a camp for you. In Boston! Why am I going to camp? What's all this about camp? Special Olympics, Special Olympics, Special Olympics! All these things I have to do for you!"
Sitting next to his mom, Tim Shriver bursts into laughter. He knows exactly what's coming.
"I don't want to hear another yip out of you!" he crows, seconds before his mother says it. They've managed to arrange for five other Camp Shrivers this year around the country -- one in Teddy's home state -- and she will hear no carping about any of it, even if it's in jest.
The senior senator from Massachusetts later will stress he is very happy to do this, of course. He will say her morning soccer romp "doesn't surprise me. If she didn't win, that would surprise me."
Shriver graduated from Stanford University with a sociology degree and wanted to be a social worker. She had no grand, global vision for helping the mentally retarded; she was just plenty mad.
"I was out there at my house and two women called me and up and said [officials] were not letting their children participate in the city programs for the summer," Shriver recalls, explaining how the original Camp Shriver came about 44 years ago. "Then someone else called me and said they wouldn't take her daughter, because she had Down syndrome. And that was it, I got cross. I got very, very cross."
She's angry just at the memory of it, but then she looks up and immediately dissolves into a smile. Her husband of 53 years, who has Alzheimer's disease, has just come into the room.
