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GREENSBORO — When Dave Sheets sent his son to Chicago in the summer of 1968, he thought Marty would have a good time and meet some new people, participating in a small competition they were calling the Special Olympics.

Just a nice weekend trip, he thought. Nothing more.

Forty years later — surrounded in his son’s bedroom by more than 250 medals, awards for service to the state, and photos with dignitaries and star athletes — Dave Sheets can see just how wrong he was.

The Special Olympics — led by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died Tuesday at age 88 — changed Marty Sheets’ life.

“Is your life better because of the Special Olympics?” Sheets asked his son Tuesday in their Greensboro home.

“Yes,” Marty Sheets replied with a smile. He’s not much of a talker, so his dad fills in the details about what Eunice Shriver meant to the intellectually disabled community.

“She changed the world,” Dave Sheets said. “She gave people who have intellectual disabilities a new life and new opportunities.”

Another Greensboro native, Charles Michael Stone, also competed at the first Special Olympics in 1968.

“The best part was just getting to know some of the athletes. …” he said. “(Shriver) inspired me to do a lot of things I could never do before.”

His mother, Alice, said that Shriver became like a member of her family.

“She’s one in a million, to care that much,” she said. “And she really cared.”

Marty Sheets, who is now 56 years old and still competing, first met Shriver at the closing banquet of the 1968 games when she came to his table, smiled as the spotlight turned onto them and slipped a gold medal over his head.

The Sheets family met her again in 2007 when Marty Sheets was chosen to be one of five Special Olympians in a portrait with Shriver. The picture was unveiled in May as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution.

“She’s just a wonderful lady. She was so thoughtful, particularly of the athletes,” Dave Sheets said. “It wasn’t about her. It was about the athletes.”

Michael Garguilo, Piedmont Triad director for the Special Olympics, said Shriver’s message has been widely embraced in the Greensboro area.

“The amount of athletes that participate in this area is astounding,” he said. “It’s just enlightened their lives.”

Looking at his son’s life, Dave Sheets can’t help but compare it to his brother Rodney’s. He was intellectually challenged too, and during the 1930s, people didn’t like to talk about it much.

Because of Shriver, Dave Sheets said, things have been different for his son.

“She gave people who had intellectual disabilities a new life and new opportunities,” he said. “And that’s exactly what happened to Marty.”

Contact Tricia L. Nadolny at  373-7028 or tricia.nadolny@news-record.com