Group by group, they walked past the projection screen displaying upcoming departures toward the rows of Cessnas ready to deliver them home Saturday from the Lincoln Airport.
But before a considerable number of athletes in Lincoln for the national games departed by way of the Citation Special Olympics Airlift, they waved and thanked those who offered one last round of applause. They traded one last round of high-fives with a handful of Lincoln's volunteers, who participated in the weeklong event by the thousands.
Then the athletes boarded their planes. The medals around their necks clanged together as they made their way up the steps to their jets.
Connecticut tennis coach Kathie Dumais said the sleigh bell-like noise let her know whether team members were behind her during their last jaunts around Lincoln on Friday.
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"They were great," she said of the national games, her first, which she called a life-changing experience.
Connecticut athlete Joel Kelleher, 22, won the bronze in golf. Before he and Dumais and three others boarded their plane home, he talked about the fast greens at Mahoney Golf Course and the golfers from different states he was paired with.
"Had a fun time meeting 'em," he said.
He heads back to work at FedEx and to Camp Horizons, a camp for people with special needs. He'll bring his stories from the games back to the camp he attended for 10 years and to the campers he now counsels.
He and others will return not just to responsibilities, work and school, but also to honorary banquets, ceremonies and welcomes home.
Before their departure, the athletes flying out Saturday were tossed one last Lincoln party. A DJ played the B-52s' "Love Shack" in an airport hangar and the few athletes who hadn't burned up all their energy on the track, diamond, court or elsewhere this past week danced.
When Team New York's track athletes arrived at the airport around 9:30 a.m., they commandeered the stage, jitterbugging to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" before forming a kick line.
"I don't wanna go home," Kara Siddons, from Troy, N.Y., shouted while the rest of her track friends air guitarred to a Roy Orbison song.
On Saturday, many shared their lasting impressions of the games, and of Lincoln.
"Awesome," Georgia softball coach Leah Bodnarchuk said as she walked to the twin-engine Cessna that would carry her and part of her team back to Atlanta. "Everybody here in Nebraska was so nice."
Kristene Hughes, a North Carolina track athlete, is a "global messenger" with the Special Olympics, meaning she gives speeches about the games and the organizations. She said teammate Gillian Fink soon will be telling groups about their time in Lincoln.
"I felt like I was treated like royalty," she said.
"This has been awesome. That's all I can say."
Her coach, Bernie Prabucki, said he'd have fallen apart on Thursday when his athletes were running on a track so hot officials hosed it down before some of the late afternoon runs.
"These athletes, if you can't get inspired and passionate about them, you've got no heart and soul," Prabucki said.
"I'll make a deal," he said, turning to Hughes. "If I did a pentathlon, you do the mile (next time).
"Is that a deal?"
"I'll try," Hughes said.
That was good enough for him, and they headed to their plane.
"We gotta come back and do this again next year," he said to a volunteer on the way home.
Reach Cory Matteson at 402-473-7438 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.
2010 Special Olympics: A life-changing experience
