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People don't often read about Kyle Maytubby in this city's sports pages, and that's a crying shame. He's everything you want in an Olympian.

Shucks. Maytubby's so modest that if he were a dessert, he'd be humble pie. He'll talk sports all day long, but don't expect a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall soliloquy about the Importance of Being Kyle Maytubby.

And friendly? Partner, put 'er there. The best thing about being an Olympian, he says quickly, is getting a chance to make new friends.

"I like talking to the players," he says with a grin. "It doesn't matter who they are. I just like to talk."

Then there's that drive - and we don't just mean the one he just smacked down the No. 3 fairway.

The list of sports Maytubby's tried in his young life looks like a TiVo scan of SportsCenter. At one time or another, he has played football, basketball, baseball, track, tennis, golf, volleyball.

"And bowling," he adds.

Ah, yes, bowling. He just threw his first 200 game.

So how did the city's sports journalists miss this bubbling lava flow of talent? How'd they overlook the Olympian in our midst?

Easy. Kyle Maytubby is a Special Olympian, part of a group that doesn't get covered nearly as often or as well as it should. But, hey, he's not complaining.

For one thing, there's no time. Maytubby, recently named to Team USA's golf squad, has a flight to catch in a few days. Destination: Shanghai, China, for the Special Olympics' World Summer Games.

He is sitting in his parents' kitchen, adroitly answering questions about an honor that still seems a bit unreal. Maytubby is mentally handicapped, but he fully grasps this is a big, big deal.

When asked whether he was thrilled about his selection to the U.S. team (talk about your dumb questions), Maytubby patiently replies: "Of course. I was really ecstatic."

He wasn't the only one. Kyle is just part of another squad - Team Maytubby - that has sacrificed a lot to get him to this unlikely point.

Sitting near the 26-year-old Kyle are his mom, Debbie, an elementary school teacher, and his father, Lee, who works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Albuquerque. For the most part, they let their son do the talking at the kitchen table. But, rest assured, they have some stories - memories of how hard they've fought and and scratched and worked for Kyle to have every opportunity.

Those heartaches and headaches are something only families of handicapped kids can ever understand, and the pride - deep and wide - is palpable.

Finally, there is symmetry. Lee and Debbie have three sons. The other two, 24-year-old Derek and Matt, 18, had been the better-known athletes of the family. Both were high school baseball stars in Albuquerque, with Derek eventually playing at New Mexico State and Matt beginning his career this year at Odessa Junior College in Texas.

Tall and strapping, Kyle did fine, even earning a varsity tennis letter at La Cueva High in 2000. But as often as not, he was the fan in the stands, and it didn't seem likely that he'd be the guy getting the free gear from Nike or making speeches to a room full of Special Olympics supporters.

That all changed when Kyle was introduced to golf a few years ago by a childhood friend, Chris Herrera. Before long, Maytubby was pounding the ball - and gaining the attention of Special Olympics officials, who offered him a bid on the U.S. team.

The Maytubbys knew Kyle was a prospect for that list, but they had steeled themselves to the possibility, if not inevitability, of disappointment. So on the day Debbie got the fabulous call informing her that Kyle was, indeed, a Special Olympian, she did what every mom does at such moments.

"I cried," she says. "I was jumping up and down, I was so happy."

Debbie raced to Kyle's workplace - A-1 Ford Collision, where he works 40 hours a week as an auto detailer - and told him the news.

Kyle, as his wont, handled the honor like a 3-foot gimme on the 18th green. He was Tiger Woods-cool, gracefully accepting congratulations all around.

Then he excused himself, ostensibly to go to back to work. Thinking no one was watching, Kyle did a dance in the parking lot that Terrell Owens might recognize.

OK. Maybe for just a moment, K.M. had a little T.O. in him. But then he returned to normal and started making plans for China.

"I'm not nervous," he says with a shrug. "I'm just happy to get a chance to play."

Oh, yes, Kyle Maytubby gets the point. Maybe better than any of us.