€¦ · Web viewGood morning, this is Dawn Turco at Hadley moderating today. Let me introduce today’s Seminar@Hadley. Today’s Seminar@Hadley’s topic is “Sports, Recreation

Transcript: Sports, Recreation and Physical Activities for Peoplewho are Blind and Visually Impaired

HadleySports, Recreation and Physical Activities for People who are Blind and Visually ImpairedPresented by Mark Lucas and Jennifer ArmbrusterDate January 9th, 2010

Dawn TurcoGood morning, this is Dawn Turco at Hadley moderating today. Let me introduce today’s Seminar@Hadley. Today’s Seminar@Hadley’s topic is “Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity for People who are Blind and Visually Impaired,” and we are very fortunate this morning to have two presenters with us. Mark Lucas is the Executive Director of the United States Association of Blind Athletes, what we often just refer to as USABA.

He is joined by Jennifer Armbruster who is a goalball gold medalist and she also works at The

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Lakeshore Foundation, a provider of recreational opportunities for people with disabilities. We’ll be talking about current popular sports and we’ll be hearing about goalball and Paralympics and, oh goodness knows what will come up. But, today, let us get ourselves underway by my first introducing to you, Jen, who will then pass the microphone off to Mark and Mark will begin with an overview of USABA. So, Jen, I am releasing the microphone and good morning to you both.

Jennifer ArmbrusterGood morning, everybody, this is Jen Armbruster—I’ll just do a brief introduction. I am a goalball athlete for USABA, I’ve been playing for about 21 years now, and a Paralympic athlete as well. And like Dawn said, I work down at The Lakeshore Foundation; we’re a non-profit organization and fitness facility geared toward people with disabilities. We’re also a Paralympic training site, so I get paid to play—so, not too bad. Go ahead, Mark.

Mark Lucas


Good morning everybody, and like Jen, I also get paid to play. For the last 17 years, I have worked for the United States Association of Blind Athletes in Colorado Springs, and prior to that, I was with The Foundation for the Junior Blind, now called the Junior Blind of America, located in Los Angeles, California with the same mission US Association of Blind Athletes and that’s to enhance the lives of people who are blind and visually impaired. And, Dawn, I’ll pass the mike back.

Dawn TurcoThank you, Jen and Mark. I think we’ll get today’s presentation underway with an overview of USABA, so I’m giving it right back to you, Mark.

Mark LucasPerfect—thank you, Dawn. As you may know, or some of you may know, The United States Association of Blind Athletes is a national organization and member organization of the United States Olympic Committee. And again, our mission is to enhance the lives of people who are blind and visually impaired through sport, recreation, and physical activity—and we do this


through various sports, such as swimming, judo, track and field, alpine and Nordic skiing, power lifting, showdown, tandem cycling, bowling, and there are just a various sports that US Association of Blind Athletes endorses throughout the United States. We have local chapters throughout the United States—some states have very strong chapters, some chapters aren’t as strong, and so states like Florida, Michigan, Seattle or Washington, those chapters are very strong chapters and so, again, we are enhancing the lives of people who are blind visually impaired through these various sports. One sport that we specifically have is goalball—that we manage with the United States Olympic Committee. And we do this from a grass-roots level at our local chapters and with our partners and affiliates, all the way up to the international level, such as Jen, who plays for our international—our US Women’s National Goalball Team. So that is a quick overview of The United States Association of Blind Athletes.

Dawn TurcoThank you, Mark. That was a good overview. When you next take the mike, do us a favor and try


speaking up just a little bit, I have a few text messages of people struggling to hear you. And for those of you with troubles, try adjusting your speakers as well. Having said that, I think we’ll move on to Jen. I’m going to hand the microphone to you and I think you are going to tell us a little bit about the sport of goalball.

Jennifer ArmbrusterYes, Jen again. A little bit of history about goalball, as Mark said, USABA runs it from the grass-roots level all the way up to the international level for us. Goalball actually started after World War II. It was introduced as a rehab sport for blinded vets returning from the war. Through the years of playing, I started like I said in 1990. I lost partial vision in 89, as a basketball player and was recruited to try the sport of goalball. I was introduced to it in 90 and was fortunate enough to make the US team a year later and then was selected to go to Barcelona in 1992. And through the 20 years I’ve been playing the sport, it’s really progressed…the strategies, the athleticism; all those types of things have really progressed.


What’s neat about the sport, really because of the history of it, it is a great sport for grass-roots, it’s a great rehab sport for someone maybe just losing their vision, or even for little kids just starting out. Probably one of the biggest draws we have with goalball from the grass-roots level all the way to the elite level is that it is a team sport and the values and things that you learn from being part of a team, I think are pretty important, just like anybody else. The teamwork, the cooperation, the communication, not letting each other down, having to work hard, are great lessons to be learned from the sport itself. So, you can use it at a grass-roots level also to introduce team sports to someone who’s visually impaired or blind all the way up there to that kid who has that dream of representing USA on their back; it’s a goal to work towards. They can take it to the highest level they want to, or they can keep it at a recreational level just like you would softball or basketball—we have rec leagues and regional leagues and then you have nationals and all the way up to international. So, that’s one of the draws to the sport that I love, for sure.


Like I said, my history really was—I was a kid, 14 years old when I started losing my vision, at that time Colorado (which is where I’m from) did not have a team. My father at that time, coached various different sports, so through the military and different softball-basketball games, had a kid now that was visually impaired and decided to get the rule book and coach his first team in 1990 at the Colorado level. That’s kind of where I started was in the gym with just him and I developing drills and what-not. And from there, we started going to tournaments as a pool player and then we had our own Colorado team established by 1992. Then through that we’ve been able to represent Colorado at our Nationals for all 21 years and we’ve made the title game 20 of those 21 years, winning I think 9 National Championships, pushing second those other years.

When Mark asked me to talk a little bit about forming your own teams and I think a lot of people think with goalball, you have to have three or four people every time and you really don’t. You as an athlete, just like any other sport, with basketball, you can work on the skills on your own or with a friend. I know growing up I went off to college and


didn’t have a coach in the backyard anymore, but I could always find a friend to throw a ball at me 40 miles an hour—that was never an issue. There’s always somebody trying to do that, so I grew up trying to find my own friends to play that—which I encourage a lot of people really to start teams whether it’s your siblings, it’s your friends—you know we live in a predominantly sighted world. The cool thing about our sport is you put a blindfold on and everyone’s equal…which is one of the draws I like about the sport that it doesn’t matter what your visual level is. It’s all equal once you put the blindfold on and today’s family probably had the bigger advantage, being blind, to be able to adapt to the sport a little bit quicker. But, that’s kind of the brief overview on goalball itself and sort of how I started and then I think Mark’s going to go into introducing Paralympics I believe.

Mark LucasAnd I’ll take it from there. The Paralympic Games are the pinnacle, the second largest sporting event for people with physical disabilities and sensory disabilities in the world. The Olympics is the first largest event. So, with that said, in the Paralympic


Games, the next Paralympic Games will be in London and the first one started in Rome in 1960. In the Paralympic Games, athletes with dwarfism, athletes who are amputees, with spinal cord injuries, blind and visually impaired, and cerebral palsy, compete in 22 sports in the Summer Paralympic Games. Goalball being one of those that US Association of Blind Athletes manages.

There’s also the Winter Paralympic Games which are about to take place here in March in Vancouver after the Olympics are over, then the Paralympic Games will also take place in Vancouver. In the London Paralympic Games, approximately 4,500 athletes from 22 sports will compete in the Paralympic Games. The blind and visually impaired—people who are blind and visually impaired compete in 6 of those 22 sports—they are tandem cycling, swimming, judo, five-a-side football, and goalball are the sports that athletes who are blind and visually impaired compete in the Paralympic Games. Jen Armbruster is a 5 time Paralympic athlete I believe and started in 1992 in Barcelona and has competed in each Paralympics since then—the 92 Paralympics Barcelona, the 96


Paralympic Games in Atlanta, the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, and then in Athens.

And now Jen is gearing up to compete in the London Paralympic Games which will take place in 2012. And in order to get there, Jen and her women’s team in our men’s goalball team must qualify against all the other countries in the world in order to get to the London Paralympic Games. And so, one event that Jen will be going to this summer, along with her 5 others teammates will be the World Championships, which will take place, I believe in Manchester, England. And there, her team has to come in the top 4, I believe, and Jen can explain that and our men have to come in the top 6 in Manchester in order to go on to London to compete in those Paralympic Games. So, as you see, the Paralympics are just an incredible opportunity for the best of the best in the world to compete in the Paralympic Games.

Sometimes I’ll get some phone calls from a parent or a child—they’ll say, “I want to compete in the Paralympic Games.” Well, in order to do that, an athlete has to have tremendous talent, tremendous ability, tremendous drive, tremendous


passion, the ability to train and compete like Jen is doing, almost on a full time level—every day in the weight room 365 days a year, even on Christmas and Hanukkah, in the weight room, doing strength and conditioning, throwing the ball…there’s so much that takes place on the elite level, like the Olympics to be a part of the Paralympic Games. One of the greatest opportunities that I’ve had in my 25 years of experience working with people who are blind and visually impaired is to watch our women’s goalball team on the medal stand in Beijing after a tremendous victory where they were in the semi-finals, came back up from 2-0 or 2-1, and came back to win it in a 3-2 shootout in overtime. Then, to take on the China team in their home field, on their home court, in front of 15,000 fans to get to the medal stand and be standing on the medal stand. The Paralympics, again, are the pinnacle of Olympics for people with physical disabilities. And with that said, I’ll turn it back to Jen and let her talk a little bit about her specific Paralympic experience.

Jennifer ArmbrusterHi again, thanks Mark. I just wanted to touch on a couple more things when you were reading the list


to, and I think I forgot if track and field was mentioned, the other one that was added recently too was rowing, and that’s actually across disability sport, so blind is—it’s a four man boat—and one of them has to be (at least one and up to two) can be visually impaired and blind. This is another sporting opportunity for new guys that love the water.

As far as my Paralympic experience, Mark is correct, I’m a five time Paralympian—started back in Barcelona in 1992. We’ve got a bronze medal in Atlanta, then came up short in Athens with a silver medal, and like Mark said, in Beijing we got it done and were able to hear our national anthem played in front of all those fans up in China. The experience itself—it’s hard to describe. It’s unbelievable, really to be able—as a little kid growing up, my dream was to represent my country a couple of different ways. I wanted to put a military uniform on. When I lost my sight, that wasn’t an option, but I always wanted to represent my country at the Olympics, I thought it would be in the sport of basketball, lost my vision—like I said when I was 14, I went partial and actually two days before we left for the Barcelona games, I went total


in a matter of about 4 hours. Probably my dream came true a little quicker than it would have in basketball. I represented my country at age 17 in 1992, with red, white and blue on my back, which will probably be my most memorable games in some ways, just because it was my first one. A 17 year old kid, pretty overwhelming—thought I’d actually get to see opening ceremonies, but like I said, I went totally blind the day before we left for the games two days before we started.

And then, after that, every single one of them had their own highlights; their own ups and downs and will always be memorable to me. Then of course, 2008, in Beijing is always going to hold a pretty special place in my heart to be able really for 20 years to finally achieve what we’ve been working for which was to put the USA on top and to hear the national anthem—it will always be one of the highest sporting achievements of my life, obviously. And probably the other thing that made Beijing 2008 pretty special for me was I was actually elected by my peers, the Paralympic team, to carry in the flag during opening ceremonies in 2008 and, like I said, I wanted to be in the military and serve my country and I couldn’t do that when I


lost my sight, but to hold the stars and stripes up and really lead them into that delegation to that arena with 90,000 people—it was pretty special. Also pretty special—my father was career military, and like I said, he coached my state team and became the assistant coach for the US and had been the head coach and I asked him to escort me…which was pretty sweet and I’ll always remember that for the 20 plus years he gave in the military and then the 20 years he’s given as a coach in the sport as well—the country will be special to me.

Really the 09 games I played with my teammates and our coaching staff to go through game, after game, after game for 8 straight days was pretty incredible. I have been a part of the team, like I said, 20 years—I’ve played with a lot of different ladies—very incredible athletes, and I think the difference between 04 and 08 was the dedication level. Like Mark said, we spent a lot of time in the gym. We made a conscious decision, some moved to Colorado Springs, so they could be full time with coach. Two of us had actually moved out of the city, twice a month would fly back to Colorado Springs just to have practices with our team and


we did that and if we couldn’t make it in, we were in the gym every weekend with the goalball, and then every day of the week, we were in the weight room and doing weights, cardio, agility workouts, strength conditioning, and really the five of us were on the 04 team and we were a little disappointed when we had to hear, “O, Canada,” instead of our national anthem. And we have a great rivalry with Canada, and it’s always been fun and things, but of course, we left that disappointment and we had four years to wait to redeem ourselves a little bit. And, like Mark said, to go in and play China in their house was a pretty incredible experience. It was, like I said, I don’t even know if words are adequate or not to ever describe what’s that like to be able to play for your country and to hear your national anthem. It’s definitely the pinnacle of my sporting career, for sure.

Dawn TurcoThank you for that, Jen. My goodness, we just cannot even imagine the level of thrill that that brings. And, I don’t know about the rest of the participants, but I tear up with the national anthem playing, and I’m not even one of the athletes, so it’s got to be incredibly moving. Before we move


on to other topics, I think I’d like to open it up to any questions or comments from those who have been listening in. So, I’m going to go ahead and release the microphone.

KathyGood morning, this is Kathy. Since you’re going to describe your experience wondering if Jen, you could give us a little background on what exactly goalball is, if someone like myself is not familiar with the sport.

Jennifer ArmbrusterYou bet. Basically, the sport of goalball is played on an indoor court, the same dimensions as the international volleyball court, 18 by 9 meters. Our goal goes the whole 9 meters on the back line—it’s about shoulder height goal. It’s a 3 on 3 game. It doesn’t matter what your vision level is, we play blindfolded. Our court’s divided really basically into what we call six sections—into 9 by 3 meter sections, the one closest to the goal, so 3 meters deep is called a team area. And so your team, it’s a 3 on 3 game, will play in that area. The object is to get the ball past your opponents on the other


end, and past their goal. It’s 3 on 3, you have three positions: a right wing, a left wing and center are traditional set-ups that you would have on the court. The ball is about the size of a basketball, but there’s no air-pressure in it, so about three pounds of dead weight. At the international level, our balls go in between 35 and 40 miles an hour on the women’s side and between 40 and 45 on the men’s side. It’s less than a second reaction time. Traditional defense is really played like a soccer goalie. You’re using your body to defend it; obviously, we’re all blindfolded, so it’s all hand-ear coordination. The ball has bells in it, but it’s in movement, and you know you can hear it. As far as offense goes, it’s thrown underhand because we have what we call the high ball line, so the ball’s got to make contact on the floor before that line. With no air-pressure, it’s not going to bounce as much as a basketball. You can skip it a little bit, but you’d be like a pitcher in softball or baseball, you can throw curves, reverse curves, hard shots—accuracy is key. To me a good offensive player has all the different throws in the arsenal and they can do a spin shot where you doing a 360 and more like a discus thrower would be. Like I said, you can throw curves, reverse


curves—and your accuracy should be dead-on on the other end to be able to put the ball where you want it. Defensively, the closest thing I could describe it is like a soccer goalie. You’re on, most all of our women’s team, play really on the balls of their feet and are pretty well positioned to be able to dive out to their side. Some of the guys, just because they’re much taller, play sometimes down on one knee because sometimes trying to drop a 6’6” frame down in .7 seconds, just doesn’t get there in that time, so they play traditionally a little bit lower, just to try to get their tall frame down. Our team’s obviously a little bit shorter, being female, so we have a little bit more lateral movement that we have to rely on, because our course is the same size as the guys’, so we rely on our dive a lot. Sometimes you kick first, but your ultimate defensive position you’re going end, lying on your side, arms extended, feet all the way outstretched so you really can be what we call a wall, so you can cover more area.

Dawn TurcoDo we have any other questions?


CallerAre you able to talk to one another during a game?

Jennifer ArmbrusterYeah, as long as you have possession of the ball, you can talk. Once we’ve released it, so, us as a team there is a shot clock just like there is for basketball, once we’ve made any kind of contact on defense, our shot clock starts with just 10 seconds on first contact, so it’s going 40 miles an hour, so it bounces off of you, you have to track it down, so you always talking with your teammates there and letting each other know where it is. When you’re passing in between each other, you’re communicating all the time. You might be calling plays to one another, maybe different defensive strategies that you’re going to do on the next play, but once the ball’s released out of your hands, you have to be quiet so the other team has a fair chance to hear the ball—which is a hard spectator sport for a lot of people, because you can’t really cheer until there’s a whistle and there’s a break in the play.

Caller


So you’re actually throwing the ball and moving it from one goal to another in order to score and you’re moving down towards the goal, but you’re throwing it back and forth, not kicking it?

Jennifer ArmbrusterThat’s correct. You have no physical contact with the other team. You play on your end—so you kind of are, like I said, that 3 by 9 meter on your goal, and they’re 3 by 9 meter on their goal. Defensively, part of your body has to be within that rectangle, on offensive, you can go up, technically all the way to mid-court, but that high ball line that I talked about that the ball has to hit between, is 6 meters in front of your goal, so you really have a 6 meter area. So, we actually back up to the goal, run up like you would for bowling, a little bit faster obviously because it’s speed, and release the ball underhand because it’s got to hit before that line. And then, the trick is once you release the ball, you’ve got to back into your position for defense. So, it’s a back and forth game…pretty fast paced going back and forth, back and forth. But, yeah, you’re always throwing the ball underhand or side-arm—no kicking.


Dawn Turco Jen, we have a text message where the person is saying that goalball sounds a little scary, fast, and loud and thinks that the ball must hurt, even with the pads and I have to agree. When I’ve seen it played it is just fascinating, so if anyone has the opportunity to get out and do that, we would recommend it.

We also have a comment that one of our listeners is thinking that USABA is not real active in Louisiana, and we had another individual ask about activity in Ohio. So, not sure, Mark if you want to pick those up, but I’ll give you the microphone.

Mark LucasSure, and to comment about David’s comment that you discussed earlier, and that is, when teaching goalball for the first time as I’ve experienced it, most beginners think that the ball is going to hurt them, and it’s kind of like to me, an analogy, and Jen you maybe can help me with this—but to me, it’s like when a beginner is playing for the first time and they get hit, it’s kind of like jumping in a pool. It kind of takes your breath away the first time,


then after that, it doesn’t hurt at all. As a matter of fact, there are defensive ways to protect your body and there are the knee pads, and the elbow pads and the hockey pads on so, when you’re playing goalball, yeah, when you’re against Jen Armbruster or other elite athletes in that level. I certainly wouldn’t go play major league baseball against Nolan Ryan when I get in the batter’s box or get hit by Jen, although she’s hit me a couple of times and taken my breath away. But, when you’re playing at a beginner level, it won’t take your breath away. Just know that—with all your knee pads and elbow pads on—maybe your first time, but then after that, no.

Louisiana and Ohio, we do not have chapters currently in those areas. There are several agencies that serve the blind in each of those areas. For instance, throughout my home state of Ohio where I grew up, there’s the Cleveland Society for the Blind, the Cincinnati Association of the Blind, and depending upon where you live, we can help hook you up to local community programs in those areas where there is sport recreation and physical activity. So, just because there’s not necessarily a local chapter of the USABA, there are


many organizations and agencies that are called community-based organizations that we can hook you up with.

CallerHello, is it hard to start a tandem biking program, recreationally, or does Louisiana have something? Thanks, Mark. Mark LucasSure, if I were a recreational athlete in any community and I have a tandem bike, the one thing that I’m going to want do—a couple of things: 1) I want to ride, and 2) sometimes I want to ride by myself with my pilot, but other times I want to ride in a group with other cyclists. And throughout the United States, there’s in many, many different local communities throughout the US, there’s cycling clubs and granted many of these cycling clubs are for sighted people or able-bodied people, but they always, always welcome people who are blind and visually impaired with tandems. So, what I would do is if you want to ride in your local area with a group of people, I’d either find, 1) the agency that serves the blind in your local area,


and/or 2) what that cycling club is in your area. And, there’s two different groups that possibly you could ride with, so that would be my recommendation.

Jennifer ArmbrusterI will go ahead and second that with Mark. I know down here I’m in Birmingham, Alabama, so like, Louisiana biking’s not huge, but there are a lot of biking clubs and I actually tandem a lot as cross-training and that’s what we did…I just went out to the local bike club and got in contact with them, and put out a message basically looking for a pilot. First of all, I had a bike, I just need someone to ride in the front, and I’ve been fortunate enough, I have tons of pilots here. But they do have a tandem specific club here, there’s nobody impaired or blind in it, but a cool thing about tandem cycling is—it’s actually pretty big across the country now, regardless if you’re blind or VI. So, if it’s for recreational based, it’s pretty easy to find some clubs out there. For the more elite level, if you’re looking for tandem racing, again, USABA now hosts a few different racing cycling camps and I believe your other question was about Massachusetts, and yes, you are correct, there is one up there.


CallerHi, this is Ginger Irwin, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have coached many years with USABA. I was on the 92 team with Jen. Anyway, another thing, you can go to your local YMCA or local community center and find out what sports and activities they have and integrate into those programs. Also I know that in the past you can get a lot of personal information from USABA of the basic modifications for the sports to help them help you to start a program in your area.

CallerHi this is Brian in Champion, Illinois. First I think I can speak for the whole group to say Jen, we are just proud to know that you represent our country and the VBI population and just it’s just marvelous, it’s just wonderful. In fact, quick anecdotally, I actually played goalball with the Austrian team. I studied near Vienna in the 70’s, and participated in their national events and played goalball with their team way back then—haven’t played much since—but would love to get one going in Champion. It’s really wonderful. And, secondly, Mark, you alluded


to, I think I heard you saying something about another sport that I’ve never heard anything about—a five-a-side football. Is that VBI specific and could you say a word about it before we maybe move on to anything else? Thanks.

Mark LucasSure—love to. Five-a-side football is soccer for people who are blind and visually impaired. It is specific to that and in the world there are actually world five-a-side football championships and the way the rules are designed, is totals play against totals—which we call B1s play against B1s. And then there’s another tournament or classification and B2s, which are low vision and B3s, which are high/partial play against each other so there’s really two separate divisions and what it’s played on is an indoor pitch, and like arena football, they have the barriers or the walls around the perimeter of the border of the pitch if you will, or the playing field—the pitch. And the ball has clackers in them, so when you hear the ball rolling, it’s, “Clack, clack, clack, clack…” and everybody is blindfolded in the B1 division so if you have no light, then everyone is going to wear the goggle regardless in the B1 division. And the goalie actually sighted and all the


rest of the other players are totally blind. And the coaches are off on the side in the pitch and behind the goalie and they use the wall and they design plays the barriers on the walls to inbound passes, to use it as a ricochet to rebound and so it…five-a-side football is soccer for people who are blind and visually impaired. Currently in the United States, we do not have a team and there are several reasons for that—one is we don’t have any resources to go out and form teams and two, currently, we are not wanting to take away from goalball and that sport, so we’re focus specific on our goalball teams and forming goalball teams and increasing that sport. Perhaps in the future we will form five-a-side football teams, but currently we have none competing internationally. Hope that helps.

Dawn TurcoThank you for that Mark. I have to say I’ve seen this form of soccer played by the silver medalist from Beijing—it was the China team who took silver. And we saw them demonstrate it and it was really fascinating as well. And what carried over in these young men’s perspective, it’s the same message that Jen had for us and it was not just the


pride in self at the accomplishment, but the pride of what they were able to do for representing their country.

Can I ask, there was a person who text messaged in earlier, saying that they could say a few words about beep baseball. I had a follow up question asking a little bit about it from somebody from South Carolina, so if you’re still in with us, would you want to say a word or two about beep baseball?

Kevin BurtonOkay this is Kevin Burton calling—or talking—from Wichita, Kansas and I am a 16 year veteran beep baseball player. Some of the things some of the others have mentioned definitely apply to beep baseball. I did play a world series in Taiwan once and it wasn’t from the perspective of having won anything, because my team was pretty mediocre, but just to hear your anthem when you’re standing on somebody else’s soil, it really does get to you and so I can vouch for that.


Beep baseball is a version of baseball with rules adapted for visually impaired players. All the players because of varying levels of acuity are blindfolded, you have a sighted pitcher and a sighted catcher, you have two—what we call spotters—it’s a defensive coordinator-type who is sighted who is allowed to give you one clue as to where the ball is. Other than that, you hear the ball. The ball beeps, hence the name of the sport. It sounds kind of like a garbage truck backing up. The bases make a different sound—it’s kind of like a humming sound, it’s a constant, it’s not a beep, so you can distinguish them. You have 6 players per side, or 7, if you’re using a DH rule. Six innings, four strikes instead of three—no such thing as second base, only first or third. And, no such thing as being on base, you hit the ball and when you—somebody in the field picks it up before you get to the base, then you’re out. If you get to the base first, then you scored run and you just go back to the bench either way…no such thing as being on base. The sport’s played coast to coast and in Taiwan. I hear France is sending a team to the World Series next year. So, here I’m in Wichita, I’m the coach of the Wichita Sonics team and our approach is that when it’s too cold to be playing baseball outside, we have career development


activities for the blind players during the winter, so I ask the players to do three things: to be on time, to pay attention, and to play hard when it’s time to play. We feel like worded just a little bit differently, that’s what employers ask, so we’re—we feel like we’re doing a couple of different things in Wichita and there are teams across the country that I could, if anybody’s interested, could help you get in touch with.

Dawn TurcoMark, how about we move on and I think you were going to talk to us about some other sports and recreational activities and camps.

Mark LucasLove to—first off; I want to make it clear to all of our listeners that what US Association of Blind Athletes does is not exclusively for Paralympic athletes like Jennifer. A very, very, very, very small percentage of people have the opportunity to represent our country both in the Olympics or the Paralympic Games. And, again, it is a very talented athlete. But, our programs and services are for all the way from recreational in a child


who’s learning to wrestle for the first time or play goalball all the way up to the elite athlete, which is I don’t know what percentage—less than probably 1% of the United States, so I do want to make that perfectly clear and US Association of Blind Athletes promotes various sports and showdown. Showdown is a table, a table kind of shuttle table for people who are blind and there’s so many other activities that besides the track and field, and the swimming, and the judo, and skiing—so it’s really important to know that we want to promote sport and physical activity from the child all the way up to the senior citizen…from a recreational beginner, all the way up to the elite athlete.

And, how do you do that? Well, we become involved in community programs in our local areas and that could be anywhere from as we talked—like Kevin talked—a beep baseball team in your area to somebody alluded to—I think it was Ginger—you could join your YMCA where they have swim programs or various programs. There are communities who have programs that are specifically geared towards people with disabilities—where Jen works for instance, in Birmingham, Alabama at Lakeshore in Chicago, you have Great


Lakes Adaptive Sports Association or in Oakland you have BORP, which is Bay Outdoor Recreation Program. So there are so many different community based programs that we all can join and be a part of to promote physical activity and I think the real goal is to stay active and that’s being active three, or four, or five times a week and getting your cardiovascular 20 minutes of time per week because we know that promotes healthy lifestyle and we feel better when we do physical activity.

So, I want to really make that clear and drive that point home. In 2010, US Association of Blind Athletes is going to do various programs. One is this last year we had 12 athletes who were in the California marathon and some of those athletes were the first time they were ever competing in a marathon—26 miles. And one group did a relay in that marathon in Sacramento in December and this year we’re going to have an international flavor to that. There are 5K races all throughout the United States. There’s—any given weekend—there’s races, running races. They go from recreational to the elite level, so we want to promote people to go out and run and race and that entails getting a


guide runner and on our website we are going to have within the next two weeks, how to guide a person who’s blind and visually impaired—both in sprints and in the distance races and runs and that’s from a recreational to an elite level and it’s geared toward that recreational runner this year. Next week in Vermont in Killington, we’ll have 15 recreational skiers skiing in Killington, and we’ve contracted the Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sport to provide us our guides and all throughout the United States, particularly where there’s snow, there are many different ski programs that offer guides and sometimes even free lift tickets for people who are blind and visually impaired. So, know if you are in an area where there’s snow, there are often time, many time, adaptive ski programs specific for you.

Jen alluded to this earlier that USABA provides cycling camps. In 2010, USABA will have learn to race cycling camps for athletes with disabilities including cerebral palsy, blind, visually impaired, spinal cord, and amputees. One will be in May and the other one will be in September. So, again, this is a little bit of a more intermediate, but we talked about tandem cycling and how fun cycling can be—


getting on the back of a bike or a bike with your pilot upfront and going out with a group of people, whether they’re another tandem couple or a group of other cyclists. And in 2010, one of the things we are working with the Rush-Miller Foundation is to do a program called, Tandemonium. September 4, 2010, we’re trying to get hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people to go out and ride on a tandem bike in their local area. And we are trying to get tandem bikes into different agencies where people will get on tandem bikes and what we’re trying to do is promote healthy lifestyle by being physically active. So, that’s Tandemonium, which will take place September 4th.

Another program USABA is going to do this summer is a sports festival and that’s going to take place the last week of July and it will be very recreational and will bring in our national coaches and those national coaches will teach specific clinics for recreational outreach to intermediate on how to train and compete in various sports. And then those athletes—we’ll expect about 50, 60, 70, athletes and when I say athletes it could be recreational athletes and they’re going to, we’re going to compete within the Rocky Mountain State


Games. They’ll have 31 sports on the program; we’ll compete in 6 of those 31 sports, including our military service members with eye injuries. This last year, and Jen’s doing the same thing at Lakeshore, we’re providing now programs and services for military service members and veterans with eye injuries.

And then, finally, in 2010, goalball tournaments are going to take place. Three regional goalball tournaments and I’ll let Jen talk about them a little bit and then a national goalball championship which will take place in Philadelphia in June of 2010. And then one final program, our sports education camps across the United States for children and youth who are blind and visually impaired and they’ll be in various communities throughout the United States. So, again, it’s most important that we all stay physically active and that can take place in so many various forms with so many different groups and organizations and I think that is first and foremost the most important thing. And, I’ll pass the mike back off to Dawn.

Dawn Turco


Thank you Mark—we had a quick question in text and the individual would like to know what ages will be participating in the sports festival?

Mark Lucas12 and older.

Dawn TurcoVery good. Let me ask if there are any other questions as we’re getting close to an hour.

CallerYes, I live in Wisconsin—I lost my sight about 6 years ago totally and I’ve learned how to play golf again and I power lift too but, as far as I know, I don’t know of any chapters of blind athletes in this area and I seem to be the only one around here that does anything like that. Is there any way to keep updated on what the blind athlete’s association is doing?

Caller


Hi, I live in Southern California and I used to go to Camp Winfield when Mark worked there and my question is how would I go about finding and joining a goalball team in my local area?

Jennifer ArmbrusterHey, I have a couple of statements: I guess one, the guy from Wisconsin that asked about a local chapter—Wisconsin does have one, The Wisconsin Association of Blind Athletes, headquartered out of Milwaukee because it’s one of our sites I know for sure we have a chapter because we have a sports education camp up that way as well. And as far as California goes, BORP I know is up in the Bay Area, but they also have Jessie Lorenz has just started the California Association of Blind Athletes as well out your way which would be definitely a good resource and for sure if you go through the USABA website, Mark has all that contact info for both Pat Gafney in Wisconsin in Jessie Lorenz out in California.

Dawn TurcoOh, good, if Mark has it, that works and also, Daniel, this is Dawn at Hadley. If you shoot us your


contact information at our feedback, @Hadley.edu, we’ll get you that information as well—we’ve been in touch with those folks a lot.

Other questions?

CallerWhere do I buy a goalball?

Mark LucasThe US Association of Blind Athletes does sell goalballs if you go to our website, and click on I believe merchandise or forms, you can purchase a goalball through US Association of Blind Athletes so that would be one way you could purchase one.

Dawn TurcoMark, would you like to go ahead and give the website please?

Mark Lucas


Yes, and I was just sending up a text—if anyone is interested in becoming involved in a local program and hooking up with a local organization, forming a goalball team, becoming actively involved and you’re looking for a group, a chapter, contact me, my email is [email protected] and then the website is www.USABA.org and on there, there is a DVD of our military program, there’s a DVD of the story of USABA, there’s a DVD on sports adaptation in the sport of judo, and next week we’ll have on there the guide running DVD, and current information usually we post as fresh as we can.

Jennifer ArmbrusterTo go along with that as well, if anybody wants my email address it’s [email protected] and our website is www.lakeshore.org. Like Mark said, we also do adaptive sports obviously and various different sports from recreation to competitive sports. So we have canoeing, kayaking, cycling, and all the way up to goalball and judo, different things as well going there. Also, we put together at [Dr. Paul Pontello] where I used to work prior to this, we started the sports education camps for blind and VI he started them back in 1988 and then I took over the national project in 2000 and we


http://www.lakeshore.org/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.USABA.org/


expanded it to about 15 different states. But, he developed the access sports model including the videos there. I also have that in print version and electronic version if you’d like to read the article as well as the sports education camp model. We have an operations manual if anybody was interested in trying to start camps for VI or blind kids in their local communities, I have all of that as well from my previous job up at Western Michigan.

Dawn TurcoWe have time for a final question before we start closing things up. I’ll open the mike.

CallerSometimes, this is Ginger Irwin again, sometimes a resource that you might want to check into if you’re looking for a group to help you set up a program, your local Lion’s Club is often times available to help with possibly finding coaches or individuals who would like to help you get something started. They may have a number of


connections, so you might want to get in touch with them to see if there’s anybody involved in sports that would like to try a little creative coaching with a blind sport. Also, they can help with equipment and costs sometimes.

Dawn TurcoAnd also, just on a personal note, this is Dawn at Hadley, through Ginger, knowing Ginger, I was able to find an individual in the Chicago area who worked with physically disabled people learning scuba and I was the first low vision person that he took on and not considering myself a very talented or athletic person, a great deal of satisfaction was gained by getting certified in scuba. So, just look and see what’s out in your area, follow up with Mark and Jen and the USABA site and recently and I haven’t checked this out myself, but I just became aware of a resource through the American Foundation for the Blind. You may be aware of their career connect site, but on the career connect site, they have added something called “just for fun” and I’m told it contains stories written by mentors in the area of recreation and athletics, so you might want to look at that as well.


Okay, before I close us out, I want to hand the microphone over to Mark and then Jen for any final comments and here we go.

Mark LucasMy final comment would be thank you all for participating today and what’s critically important for all of us is that we play—we run, we skip, we hop, we throw, we stay active and we stay active all throughout our lives so that we can lead healthy lifestyles. And to me, that’s the key message that I would like to deliver to you today, whether it’s through US Association of Blind Athletes, your local YMCA, a local cycling club—it doesn’t matter who it is or where it is, it’s a matter of that we’re all active.

Jennifer ArmbrusterYeah, I echo Mark’s comments, not just as an athlete, but also as an adult, just to be active from zero of age until death and that’s kind of what we do here at Lakeshore, but it’s just whatever that endeavor is, whether it’s a sport or a recreational activity that you engage with it—for the health and that part of it, but also for the social aspect as well


as far as finding a new group of friends and people to connect with on a hobby or recreational activity or sporting team that you really enjoy. There’s a lot to be said with taking care of yourself—physically, mentally, and emotionally and the cool thing about recreation and sports is that it provides all those elements.

Dawn TurcoI’ll take the mike and on behalf of all the participants today, Mark, I’d like to thank you for joining us and for bringing Jen into the conversation. Jen, you earned a gold star from Hadley today, outstanding presentation to both of you, many thanks.

This seminar is being recorded, so if you’d like to listen to it at a later date, or tell friends about it who might want to listen in, it is available 24/7, probably mid week of next week, we’ll have that recording on the Hadley website and you simply go to Hadley.edu, go to the past seminars link and you are there, along with the many other seminars that we’ve recorded over time—this one will appear at the top. For those who have additional comments


or feedback or suggestions for topics in the future, we invite you to go to [email protected] and give us those comments, we’d love to hear from you, both during the seminars and as you have thoughts afterwards. And if you have some success with getting out there and as they say getting in the game, let us hear from you.

For all of us here, today again, Mark and Jen, thank you so much for joining us, we’ll wish you a good day and a wonderful weekend.

[End of Audio – 0:55:31]



Documents

€¦ · Web viewGood morning, this is Dawn Turco at Hadley moderating today. Let me introduce today’s Seminar@Hadley. Today’s Seminar@Hadley’s topic is “Sports, Recreation