Kent Storm Special Olympics honors athletes, retiring coach

The Kent Storm Special Olympics team recently wrapped up its 10th year with a banquet at Azteca Mexican Restaurant in Kent.

The team has 34 athletes with disabilities,ranging from elementary-school age to 21, who participated in bowling, basketball, soccer and track and field.

In addition to celebrating athletes’ accomplishments, including varsity letters, state-level competition and reaching personal goals, the banquet honored the team’s coach, Cathy Brasher-Hwang, who retired this year.

Brasher-Hwang has spent more than 34 years working with special-needs students as an adaptive physical education teacher and was one of the founders of Kent Storm.

“She has guided us through our infancy as a team, reveled in our victories and shared our heartbreak when we lost a team member a few years ago,” Kent Storm said in a media release. “She has been a true coach to our students, never settling for less than their best effort, which has time and again surprised many of us parents, as so many of us end up saying, ‘I didn’t know he/she could do that.’”