University of Pittsburgh Athletics
How Pitt Softball Built Something Lasting With Special Olympics
10/16/2026 2:55:00 PM | Softball
Gracie Helton fielded the ball at third base and took off running, straight at the batter.
Jim, a member of the Special Olympics softball team, had hit it her way, and she had warned him she would get him. Now he was laughing and sprinting down the baseline, and his teammates were howling. Then it was Jim's turn to pitch to her. She struck out.
"Jim, I can't believe you did that to me," Helton told him afterward. "I can't believe you made me look like that."
The grin on his face is the part she remembers most.
It was a long Saturday for Pitt softball. The Panthers had already played a doubleheader against IUP on Sept. 19. Their legs were heavy, their parents were waiting, and the day was done. But a group of Special Olympics athletes had watched the second game, and now they were waiting on the field.
Nobody went home.
The night was the latest chapter in a partnership between Pitt softball and Special Olympics that began as a charity donation and has grown into an annual clinic, volunteer work at a national tournament and friendships that carry from one sport to the next.
"There's a lot of ways to get wins in a program," Pitt head coach Jenny Allard said. "Sometimes you're not always going to get them on the field, but you're going to get a win in your academic achievement. You're going to get wins in things you do off the field, and this was definitely a win. I consider this a win for Pitt softball."
It all began as a checkbox. Workscape, the season presenting partner for softball, donates to a charity of the program's choosing for every strikeout Pitt pitchers record. Allard let her players pick, and the team's charity committee chose Special Olympics.
The relationship deepened when Pittsburgh hosted the 2024 Special Olympics North America Softball Championship. Players volunteered as scorekeepers and announcers, and Allard said the experience opened their eyes to what's possible.
Different reasons. One home. ???? https://t.co/kuyBfOX8Op
— Pitt Softball (@Pitt_SB) September 1, 2026
The plan for the check was simple. Workscape would present it before the final non-conference home game of the 2025 season, set for April 19 against Robert Morris. Then the game was rained out.
The check still needed a home, and the Special Olympics asked about a scrimmage. Allard was nervous about that, so she offered a clinic instead: warm-ups, throwing drills, defense, hitting, base running. Her players pretended to miss balls the athletes hit, and the athletes told them, with great enthusiasm, that they were terrible.
"It would have never happened if we didn't get rained out," Allard said. "We would always just present the check and not really have that experience of sharing the sport together."
When the athletes' coach called to ask if they could come back, Allard said yes before she had even found a date. Associate head coach Lacy Schurr suggested holding it after a game.
Allard split the roster in half so her players could still get their postgame recovery. One group went up to the training room while the other stayed with the athletes, then they swapped, and everyone finished the night on the field together.
"We got done playing, we had our talk," Helton said. "It had been such a long day, and then I saw all of them. I'm like, 'Bam, here I am again,' just so much energy and excitement to be around them because they are so great."
The athletes made the scrimmage happen. The clinic had planned for hitting, but when Allard asked if they wanted to play against her team, they grabbed their gloves and headed for defense. Pitt's hitters took a little off their swings, and a few batted opposite-handed.
The athletes were not shy about their own performance. They trash-talked through every at-bat and every play.
"The whole time that we were scrimmaging each other, whenever they were hitting at us, it was just so much fun," said sophomore Addison Oberbreckling. "Their smack talk was just so great. That's probably my favorite part."
It came from familiarity. This was the program's second clinic with the group, and many Pitt players had also helped at a Special Olympics basketball event at the Petersen Events Center earlier this fall, where they stretched with the athletes and learned their names.
A few weeks later, those athletes were on the softball field, and the names were still there.
The athletes noticed. That recognition is at the heart of a thank-you letter two of them wrote to the team, saying that being remembered made them feel special.
Allard read it to her players after the clinic. They applauded, and by the end they had figured out who wrote it. Oberbreckling knew from the first lines.
"It truly makes me feel like coming here was the perfect choice," Helton said. "Getting to be around those specific people, there was a reason why I came here. We do something that we maybe think is so little and doesn't really take much out of us. We're just there helping them do what we think everybody should do, but it means so much to them."
By the time the clinic ended, one athlete had asked Allard how to try out for the team. The athletes and their families lingered for pizza. Allard stayed with them while her players headed off to dinner.
Allard says the clinic is now an annual tradition. Every strikeout Pitt records now carries a little more meaning, too.
"It teaches our players the impact they can have, and what impact the sport has on others," Allard said. "To have those athletes so appreciative of coming into our home and being able to share those moments with us, you just feel grateful. You're not walking off the field feeling sorry for yourself because you didn't play so well. You're walking off the field being like, well, that was a great experience."
