By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

MECHANIC FALLS – Surrounded by Special Olympians, 17-year-old Ryan Crane is full of enthusiasm.

In the gym at Central Maine Community College, he cheers when a young man with Down syndrome shoots for a basket and makes it. He slaps a high-five to a woman with mental retardation when she gets a free throw.

When the team roars with laughter at his new rhyme to describe guarding in basketball – “my butt to his gut” – he looks confused for a moment, then grins and laughs with them.

Crane’s enthusiasm has earned him the adoration of the Special Olympics athletes, their caregivers and the teenage friends he’s propelled into volunteering.

And it has helped win him a WCSH Teens Who Care Award.

A good coach’

A Poland Regional High School junior who plays two sports, Crane coaches a dozen young men and women from a John F. Murphy Homes day program in Auburn. Although he had coached children in the Mechanic Falls recreation program for years, he had never worked with adults with mental disabilities.

He found basketball players who were funny, passionate and friendly. Like him, they were eager to play the game.

“People discriminate against them so much, and they’re not any different,” he said.

When a friend came over one night before a Special Olympics practice, Crane talked him into going, too. He wanted his friend to see what he saw.

“I said, You’ll like it. It’s not like going to a baseball game or something, but it’s fun,'” he said.

The friend stayed and helped. Soon, Crane got other teens to join, too.

“It’s been so much fun. I love doing it,” said 17-year-old Cassi Reid after a team practice. “He always makes things a lot of fun. He always includes everybody, no matter what he’s doing.”

The Special Olympics basketball team practiced basic skills, such as dribbling and shooting, before Crane took over as coach. He and his friends have helped them form a cohesive team. For the first time, they will compete in actual games during the regional spring Olympics rather than just basic skills competitions.

“He’s a good coach,” said Megan Booker, 23, as she took a break during practice. “He taught us how to dribble better and he teaches us how to be a team.”

He’s so giving’

Crane’s work with the athletes and his friends has been so successful that he’s ready to try something else. He’s recruiting students from 10 area high schools to work with him and his Special Olympics basketball team on a house for Habitat for Humanity this summer. He wants to gather teenagers from as many different cliques as possible.

He hopes, he said, “to get people to recognize we really are all the same despite our differences.”

Ann Bentley, development director at John F. Murphy Homes, nominated Crane for a Teens Who Care Award after watching him with her athletes. She filled her application packet with photos, letters from staff members and her own recommendation.

“If I didn’t already have the best son in the world, Ryan would be the son I’d want. He’s so giving,” she said. “In 10 years, people will know Ryan Crane for what he’s doing for people.”

The competition’s judges agreed, picking Crane and six other teenagers from 78 nominees. As a winner, he will receive a $1,000 scholarship and will be honored during a ceremony April 7.

Crane said he was excited and honored when he learned he’d won. But it’s not the award that keeps him going back to his team.

“Seeing somebody succeed at something they’ve never tried before, and say, Wow I can do that.’ It makes me smile. I helped them get there,” Crane said.