'Champions' movie a winner for special needs families

No spoiler alerts here, promise, although one scene in the movie "Champions" out last week left one particular crowd at Regal Cinema cheering.

In the movie, actor Woody Harrelson plays a minor-league basketball coach who gets court ordered to coach a special needs team after getting into a legal jam. The movie also stars 10 actors with intellectual disabilities.

Harrelson's character bucks at the sentence. What will he call the players on his new team. He begins to use the "R" word, says Josette Duncan, president of the Special Needs Community Initiative of Gaston County.

"And the judges says, 'Call them by their names,'" Duncan says. At the moment the theater, which had been rented out Friday, March 10, for a special showing, erupted into spontaneous cheers.

About 120 people with Gaston County's special needs community filled a theater for the showing. She called the movie "honest" and said she believes it will be a hit. The story also reminded Duncan of times special needs children will want to do something, like play a sport, but there won't be coaches available to supervise or lead a team.

"That story line hit home for a lot of us," Duncan said.

Seeing the movie with a group "who understands our children's differences" made the experience comfortable for everyone, Duncan said. Other groups who participated were affiliated with Special Olympics of Gaston County and ARC of Gaston County. March is an important month in the special needs community. It is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month and March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day.

Duncan promised not to give too much of the movie away, but said Harrelson's character does eventually come around to understand "just because you have a disability doesn't mean you're not capable."

She hopes those that view the movie come away with a better understanding that all people, young and old, faces challenges, but just need an opportunity. She said the movie was a great example for giving people an opportunity, including for the actors who are given their chance to shine.

What she hopes we all take away from the movie? "Our kids have goals and have accomplishments like all kids do," Duncan said.

And those with special needs, like the actors in the movie, just want to compete and have fun.

"They're not in it for the win," she said. "They're in it for the game."

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: 'Champions' movie a winner for special needs families in Gaston County