Jon Buzby took a plunge decades ago and never stopped swimming

After helping Special Olympics Delaware expand its footprint in the Diamond State for 35 years, including the Lewes Polar Bear Plunge, Jon Buzby is stepping down from his role with the organization.

It’s been quite the journey for the Pennsville, N.J. native, and it began almost by happenstance at the University of Delaware.

“A member of the board of directors for Special Olympics Delaware was the athletic trainer at Delaware whom I had gotten to know over the years, and he approached me about filling in for a sports position – the only position at the time other than the executive director – until they could find somebody to replace him,” Buzby said. “Thirty-five years later, I’m still with the organization.”

Buzby jumped at the opportunity to have a job right out of college. Even though he was in graduate school working full time as a teaching assistant, he worked out a deal with the university so he could continue his education but work full time as well.

“At one point, I did leave a couple years into my tenure to go teach physical education, because that's what I went to school for, and I did that for seven years, and then decided to go back to Special Olympics when they were willing to create a position for me,” Buzby said.

Originally the director of sports, Buzby eventually became the director of coaches education.

“I did that for 35 years; I transitioned out of sports into the schools program because I was the only one on staff who had experience in the school systems being a phys ed teacher,” he said.

Never one to settle, Buzby branched off into something Special Olympics would need to be able to grow to the size it is today.

“I started tinkering with the media side of things, because I became a freelance writer as part of this,” Buzby said. “It was something I always wanted to do – right place, right time – and I became the columnist for the Newark Post.”

The hard work paid off and led to another opportunity for Buzby.

“That led to being a broadcaster for what was Fox 1290 AM upstate,” he said. “It became Fox Sports 1290, and I was originally the color guy for high school football and basketball.”

After Matt Pencek, whose son Connor graduated from Cape in 2024 after a successful unified sports career, made the jump from radio to TV, Buzby took over as the play-by-play guy.

“I would never go back to color; I love doing the play-by-play,” he said. “And so from that, I continued with my role in Special Olympics. We got involved in the unified sports program, which is a national initiative to bring people with and without disabilities together.”

Buzby knew it was something Delaware needed.

“It was an exciting opportunity to build not only what we were doing in existing schools, but also get more schools involved,” Buzby said. “That was a big part of what I did for the last 10 years.”

He also became the play-by-play person for the Wilmington University men's and women's basketball teams, which he’s done for the last five years.

“I was fortunate to be able to kind of mold two careers together,” Buzby said.

His knowledge of the industry was a huge benefit for the organization and allowed Special Olympics Delaware to garner the right kind of attention to continue its mission.

“I would send one photo of somebody in the readership area of every local paper in the state,” he said. “I would write the caption, and all [the publisher] had to do was click it, put it in and go.”

Buzby also lent his voice to Special Olympics Delaware. He was the emcee for the majority of Special Olympics events, including the Polar Bear Plunge.

Buzby said one of his top three moments comes from the Cape Henlopen School District, when Dr. Eileen Baker came from Middletown and into the district.

“She was wonderful, and she had done some things along the way, but when she came into her position at Cape, she called me, and it was one of the best phone calls I got, because I knew she would get done what I had been trying to do for years, and that is build up the number of schools to be part of Special Olympics,” he said.

Growing Special Olympics Delaware within the district, Baker is credited by Buzby for getting the program to the point where 70 kids just recently tried out for unified basketball.

“All I did was pick the phone up, and we had a conversation for about half an hour of how this could look. She made it happen,” Buzby said. “It's one of my favorite stories because of the outpouring of support that there's been, the number of teachers who have come on board, the number of families that have been impacted, and it's just been a great outcome of something.”

Last year, Cape hosted the state’s largest bocce ball tournament in Champions Stadium. 

“We always say the program sells itself; once it's installed, it's like wireless internet: Until you have it, you don't realize what you did without it,” Buzby said. “That's the way it was in Cape. What impressed me the most is to come to the bocce event ... they didn't need a physical.”

Physicals can be a barrier for some athletes, but because it was a district event, it allowed for higher numbers of participants.

Another event with high participation is the upcoming Special Olympics Delaware Polar Bear Plunge.

“I have to admit that is an event we never dreamed would become what it was. I think the first year we had 72 people,” Buzby said. “We made $7,000; we thought we had died and gone to heaven because a lot of these 5Ks around the state, they make $3,000 to $4,000. We made $7,000 in an event that lasted one minute in and out of the ocean.”

Buzby said the plunge has made more than $1 million each of the last three years.

“It's become a generational thing for people, and I've had the opportunity to emcee it for the past 15 years or so,” Buzby said. “I'm actually going to continue in that role as long as they'll have me. It's just been phenomenal to watch; it's almost like a bucket list item in Delaware now.

“Thirty-five years ago, a couple states had been doing it, and my boss, Anne Grunert, approached Dave Frederick, who was the head of the Lewes Polar Bear Club,” Buzby said. “He's why we still call it the Lewes Polar Bear Plunge.”

This year the event will be held in Rehoboth Beach at 1 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 2. More information about the event can be found at plungede.org.

Details about Special Olympics Delaware is available at sode.org.