Coming up with just one accomplishment worthy of the family tree might seem daunting when your maiden name is Kennedy.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver has made it routine.

On January 13 at the NCAA's Honors Dinner in Indianapolis, she will continue that tradition, becoming the second woman to receive the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the Association's highest award, which counts among its honorees four former U.S. presidents.

Although she may be best known to the general population as the fifth of nine Kennedy siblings, which include a president, two senators and an ambassador, it was another family relationship that influenced her later success the most. That was the one with her sister, who has mental retardation. In a time when individuals with mental disabilities most often were reared in institutions, Eunice's sister Rosemary grew up at home.

After observing the capabilities of her sister, the future Teddy winner, who was a swimmer and track and field student-athlete for Stanford University in the early 1940s, spawned a movement that has touched millions: the Special Olympics, for which she now serves as honorary chair. These days, her husband, Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps, chairs the Board of Special Olympics, while their son, Timothy, is president and CEO of the organization.

This worldwide movement's roots go back to the early 1960s and the Shriver backyard, which Eunice transformed into a day camp grounded in the then-radical belief that both children and adults with mental retardation could take part in and benefit from competitive sports.

"I was convinced that with training and practice they could run a race, throw a ball, swim and play team sports," she said. "This would allow them to feel, for the first time in their lives, how liberating and empowering it is to train and to learn, to strive to test one's skills, and to achieve one's personal best."

Beyond the athletics realm, Shriver felt that the lessons taught to the competitors through the Special Olympics would translate into competence in other more practical areas, similar to the NCAA's goal for its student-athletes.

"Above all, I hoped that the families and neighbors of persons with mental retardation could see what these athletes could accomplish, to take pride in their efforts and to rejoice in their victories," she said.

A dream come true

By 1968, when Shriver's dream became a reality at Chicago's Soldier Field, 1,000 athletes with mental retardation from 26 states, Canada and France were there competing in track and field, hockey and aquatics. By 1999, when Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, hosted the 10th Special Olympics World Summer Games, 7,000 athletes from 150 countries competed in 19 sports and were cheered on by more than 45,000 spectators.

Beyond the success in athletics, the roles of the competitors have increased. Many now serve as spokespersons, coaches, Board members, reporters and photographers.

Although founding the Special Olympics alone meets the requirement for the Teddy -- that the recipient "by personal example exemplify most clearly and forcefully the ideals and purposes to which collegiate athletics programs and amateur sports competition are dedicated" -- the same could be said of Shriver's other achievements.

While it's probably the most well-known, the Special Olympics is just part of the worldwide effort she spearheaded to improve the lives of people with mental retardation. She also pioneered programs to research the causes of mental retardation, increase understanding and acceptance of children with mental retardation and improve the quality of their care, and address the problems of teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse.

That effort had its genesis in 1957, when she took over direction of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, which her father started as a memorial to her brother, who died while serving in World War II. Operating under its two stated objectives, the Foundation's civic contributions are numerous. Those objectives are (1) to seek the prevention of mental retardation by identifying its causes and (2) to improve the means by which society deals with citizens who have mental retardation.

In 1961, the Foundation established the President (John F.) Kennedy Committee on Mental Retardation. The next year, it developed the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. One year later, the Foundation established fitness standards and tests for individuals with mental retardation, similar to the President's Fitness Awards program.

In 1964, the Foundation's efforts also led to changes in civil-service regulations so that persons with mental retardation could be hired on the basis of ability rather than test scores.

'Community of Caring'

Seventeen years later, in 1981, she addressed another public-health concern when she founded Community of Caring, a school-based program that deals with the issues of teen pregnancy, school dropouts and drug abuse. The program provides a mechanism to change the culture of an entire school and school community. While many school programs focus solely on the academic needs of students, a school that adopts and embraces the Community of Caring focuses on its students' emotional, psychological and moral needs as well as academic concerns. In short, Community of Caring seeks to develop emotionally healthy students and give them positive feelings of self worth. Today, Community of Caring programs are working in 600 public and private schools in 26 states and Canada.

In 1984, Kennedy Shriver was recognized by another future Teddy winner, then-President Ronald Reagan, who presented the eventual 2001 winner with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for work on behalf of persons with mental retardation. At the time, Reagan said, "With enormous conviction and unrelenting effort, Eunice Kennedy Shriver has labored on behalf of America's least powerful people, those with mental retardation. Over the last two decades, she has been at the forefront of numerous initiatives on behalf of the mentally retarded, from creating day camps, to establishing research centers, to the founding of the Special Olympics program. Her decency and goodness have touched the lives of many, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver deserves America's praise, gratitude and love."

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was born with more advantages than most, but has spent her life giving back to society, making her more than deserving of her latest accomplishment.