What is your job and how long have you been with the UI?
I'm interim director for the Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services
and head coach of the men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams. Since
1990, I also have served as a guest lecturer and worked with a considerable
number of students on independent studies and research projects. I came
to the UI in 1977 as a student, earning my Ph.D in 1984. I have been on
the faculty/staff since 1981.
What does the division do at the UI?
The Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services (DRES) handles disability
documentation verifying the disabilities of UI students, and identifies
the impediments associated with their disabilities. We then work with the
students and their professors to coordinate academic accommodations, such
as priority registration, note takers, extended time, modified testing,
sign-language interpreters, and the conversion of print material to other
formats. The purpose of this process is to reduce how much a disability
inhibits the student's participation in, or access to UI facilities, programs
and services without substantially altering those programs and services.
DRES also manages Beckwith Hall, a residence hall for students with disabilities
who require personal attendants to assist them with activities of daily
living. We offer physical therapy and functional training for students with
severe, permanent physical disabilities. We have specialized services for
students with learning disabilities and students with sensory impairments.
We maintain an assistive technology laboratory that has a range of assistive
technologies, including hardware and software to accommodate alternative
computer input and output. DRES provides an internationally renowned recreation
and athletics program, and an adapted driver's training program. DRES also
operates a shop for the repair and maintenance wheelchairs and other durable
medical equipment.
You have coached the UI wheelchair basketball teams, but weren't you
also involved with the U.S. wheelchair basketball team at the Paralympics?
I've coached international wheelchair basketball teams since 1982. In 1988,
I was the head coach of the first U.S. women's wheelchair basketball team
to win a Paralympic championship. In 1993, I assumed the head-coaching position
for the U.S. men's basketball team, and subsequently coached teams that
competed in the 1993 World Wheelchair Championships and the 1994 Tournament
of the Americas Qualifying Tournament. In July 1994, I coached the men's
Gold Cup Team, which won the World Championship of Wheelchair Basketball.
Finally, in 1996 I assumed the role of head coach for the U.S. men's Paralympic
wheelchair basketball team. We finished an unexpected third; a testimony
to the fact that you're never guaranteed you'll play as well as you could
and should. It was, nonetheless, an amazing experience in Atlanta. I think
the Paralympics had a great impact on Georgia in general and Atlanta in
particular. While walking the streets or riding the subway I would often
ask people what they thought [of the Paralympics and the athletes] and it
was eerie how many times the same four words came out -- "I had no
idea." That's a very powerful accomplishment by those athletes, a number
of whom were current and former UI student athletes with disabilities.
With your kind of experience and expertise, what keeps you coming back
to work with athletes at the UI?
The sense of accomplishment and reward that I experience in working with
UI students far exceeds the satisfaction derived from Paralympic coaching.
At the university, I'm not just polishing the skills of elite performers,
I am helping to instill the fundamental knowledge, aptitude and skills necessary
to promote the lifelong pursuit of physical activity among a population
that is overwhelmingly likely to be inactive, unfit and quite unhealthy.
At UI, my role as coach goes beyond the pursuit of championships, by giving
me the opportunity to significantly and positively alter the long-term health,
wellness and quality of life of persons with severe disabilities.
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