Great Expectations

IT WASN'T hard to spot a Steve Fleming--coached team. In the world of the Special Olympics—which wrapped up their Summer World Games in China last week—effort and sportsmanship are considered more important than winning or looking good. But Fleming's basketball, golf and soccer teams rarely lost and always looked sharp, no mismatched T-shirts or goofy-looking shorts. "Don't tell me that special-needs kids don't realize what they're wearing," Fleming was fond of saying.

Fleming's basketball practices were not typical Special Olympics fare either, given the suicide drills and trash-talking. "Don't bring that mess in here," Fleming, 46, a Marine and the father of a 16-year-old mentally challenged son (below, in red), would shout if he blocked a player's shot during a scrimmage. His athletes talked smack right back. "We were like, 'We can't be touched,'" says Tony Moore, 18, who played guard for Fleming's hoops team in Lewisville, a Dallas suburb. "Coach built our confidence, got us to do things we didn't think we could. The other teams didn't know what hit them."

Neither did some parents in Lewisville's Special Olympics delegation, which is one reason Fleming is now an ex-coach. His techniques made him a polarizing figure, even as he won a state basketball title in 2005. "Our kids have a hard enough time being accepted by society," says Peggy Smith, whose daughter competes for Lewisville. "If you take a child who's disabled and teach him to trash-talk, how is that going to help that child live in the real world?" Vicki Griffin, another Lewisville delegation parent, says Fleming would be better coaching kids who aren't disabled. "A Special Olympics coach has never made my son cry, but he managed to do that," she said. "Some parents just can't accept that their child isn't going to be normal, no matter what kind of fancy uniforms you dress them in."

In 2006 Fleming left the Lewisville delegation and started his own, the Flower Mound Mustangs, in a nearby town. The two groups began bickering—Fleming was accused of recruiting Lewisville athletes—and in December 2006 both were put on probation by Special Olympics Texas. In July of this year the organization suspended Fleming for a year for, spokeswoman Kelly Coffey told The Dallas Morning News, "continued improper conduct of delegation leadership and inability to follow policies and procedures of the organization."

The spat reflects a larger disagreement among the parents of special-needs children: Should those kids—in a classroom or on a basketball court—be treated as if they're special or as if they're normal? "Some parents see their children as significantly unlike typical developing kids, and they want them protected and supported in specific ways," says David Chard, the dean of the SMU school of education. "Other parents believe the best way to support their children is to give them as many normative experiences as possible. In Steve's case, that apparently includes trash-talking."

Some parents loved the way Fleming challenged their kids, saying he raised the bar for what can be expected of them. "He treated them like they were real athletes," says Carolyn Sczepanski, whose son has Down syndrome and has participated in the Special Olympics for 13 years. "And they loved it! For some of these kids, learning a play was the biggest accomplishment of their life."

Fleming, who hopes to return to coaching disabled athletes, can't believe he's been banned from an organization he thinks could use more coaches like himself. "I figured I would be embraced by Texas Special Olympics," he says. "I taught them to hold their heads high, to have confidence in themselves and to never stop pushing themselves. If I die tomorrow, I know I helped these kids."