[nabs-l] Charlie Wilks- blind football player. (as featured on ESPN360)

[Serena]

Wow!  This is awesome!  Does anybody know if Charlie or his family is a 
member of the NFB?  He'd make a great Federationist!

Serena


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darian Smith" <dsmithnfb at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:18 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Charlie Wilks- blind football player. (as featured on 
ESPN360)


> Hello,
> I just heard this story and came across it on the internet.  I don't
> know how you may take  to it,   , but I thought it would be
> interesting to  post it  and  see where  we go with it.
> Thanks,
>   Darian
>
> sited source:  http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/columns/story?id=4637537
>
>
>
> When I first came across Charlie Wilks' story I did a double take. A
> blind football player? Really?
>
> Close your eyes.
>
> Count to 10.
>
> Open your eyes.
>
> Imagine every second, every minute, every day of your life is visually 
> blank.
>
> Charlie Wilks is 100 percent blind. He can sense only extreme light.
> He is a smart, witty 14-year-old kid who even finds time to tell blind
> jokes.
>
> At age 5, a brain tumor crushed Charlie's optical nerve and stole his
> eyesight. After multiple surgeries, Charlie was completely blind by
> age 6. He saw
> football on television before he went blind and heard plenty of
> stories from his grandfather, Al Reynolds, who played in Super Bowl I
> for the
> Kansas City Chiefs.
>
> "E:60" on ESPN
>
> Watch this story on "
> E:60
> " at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
>
> After meeting Charlie and his mother, several family members and folks
> from Emporia, Kan., I knew I had discovered a special story. Charlie
> has a perfect
> television personality. He is vibrant, intelligent and funny. He is
> dramatic and compelling. Most of all, Charlie Wilks is real.
>
> I had a radical thought. I wanted Charlie to be the "E:60" reporter
> for his own life story. Charlie liked the idea and executed the
> concept flawlessly.
> Management gave me the green light. And I just might have found the
> next Jeremy Schaap.
>
> Charlie Wilks has a fascinating story that raises lots of questions.
> Here are some of those questions and their answers.
>
> When I tell people about your story, there's one question that is
> always asked &
>
> How do I do it?
>
> Yes. How do you do it? Can you describe how you play football?
>
> I run forward, and I run into people. Basically that's it. I play
> football with my team, and they give me cues. We just work together. I
> play football with
> the four senses I have left to me; I listen mostly, it's just
> listening. I feel where the other guys are, and it's not like reaching
> out and touching them.
> I don't do that. I just have a sense of where they are by where I am
> positioned.
>
> Describe what you hear on the football field.
>
> [+] Enlarge Charlie Wilks
>
> E:60Charlie Wilks during an ESPN's "E:60" shoot in January 2009 at
> Emporia State University.
>
> Well, I'm listening to the quarterback say the down, set, hike and
> then the middle linebacker, which he's like lined up right behind me,
> and he'll yell
> "Go" when the ball is snapped. And then I'll run forward and try to
> break up the play. Sometimes I'll help my team out by listening in on
> the other team's
> conversations in their huddles.
>
> So you steal plays?
>
> Yeah, pretty much. I tell them what's going to happen, and then we stop 
> them.
>
> How are you able to do that?
>
> I listen.
>
> How do you know who to tackle?
>
> I don't. Basically the center is just pretty much in front of me, and
> there have been times when I've tackled my own teammates on accident.
> The center pretty
> much, his position is right across from me, so I run forward or I can
> run to the right or the left to try and bust through. And just wreck
> the play as
> much as I can. But basically my only job is to hit the center, drag
> them back, make an opening and give somebody else a chance to get in
> there to stop
> the play. Or, I can stop it myself.
>
> How were you able to pick up football so easily?
>
> It wasn't any different than what the other guys did, I listened and
> learned -- and then, just experience.
>
> Can you sense people around you and what's happening in the play?
>
> [+] Enlarge Charlie Wilks with Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Dwayne 
> Bowe
>
> E:60Charlie Wilks with Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Dwayne Bowe
> before the Cowboys-Chiefs game on Oct. 11. Bowe caught a touchdown in
> the fourth quarter
> and gave Charlie the ball.
>
> Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I do have a heightened sense of awareness
> of the people around me, but it depends on the day. If we're playing
> in rain, that's
> the hardest time for me to play football because I can't hear
> anything. The water that's hitting my helmet just drowns everything
> out. If it's raining,
> we will have the middle linebacker run up, and he'll smack me on the
> leg to let me know that the ball has been snapped, and then I'll run
> forward.
>
> Your grandfather Al Reynolds [Chiefs offensive lineman from 1960 to
> '68], along with many other all-time great Chiefs players, was honored
> at halftime of
> the
> Dallas Cowboys
> -Kansas City Chiefs game Oct. 11. The Chiefs invited you to be there
> with him and experience that moment. What was that like?
>
> It was pretty cool. I liked meeting
> Dwayne Bowe
> and
> Glenn Dorsey
> , 'cause they have had the experience and they gave me some good
> advice about football. But not just football, but to tell me to keep
> going with what I
> am doing. They said I inspire a lot of people out there. I think that
> it's cool that I inspire them. If it weren't for them [Bowe and
> Dorsey], I wouldn't
> have the motivation I needed to continue playing football, so I guess
> it's a two-way thing.
>
> What do you want people to remember about you after this story?
>
> I want people to remember that disabilities aren't things that get in
> your way. If you use them right, disabilities can be your greatest
> ability. It's like
> if you imagine a disability as a crutch, don't use the disability as a
> crutch, you should use the disability as a leg and start running.
>
> Charlie Wilks
> E:60Charlie Wilks reports his own story about what it's like to be
> blind and play football.
>
> Ben Houser is a senior producer for "E:60." Charlie Wilks is a
> freshman football player in Emporia, Kan. When asked what was the
> experience was like as
> an ESPN reporter -- asking family and friends about himself -- Wilks
> said: "I thought it was cool to ask my family about this stuff. It is
> usually not
> something that I would talk about, and I enjoyed learning what they
> thought about me."
>
>
> -- 
> "And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny
> calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching
> before us;
> if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our
> slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe
> past and future generations,
> then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with
> you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be
> done, and
> usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth."- Baraq Obama
>
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