[nabs-l] Charlie Wilks- blind football player.(asfeatured onESPN360)

[Carrie Gilmer]

Greetings,
Usually I try very hard, since I am a parent and also sighted, not to
interject my perspective here...mostly by far I am here to learn from you to
help other parents and young children. You do what you do here beautifully.
I pretty much never feel my 2 cents is needed, but this is one of those rare
cases where I cannot control my urge to respond and am rationalizing my
sighted and parent perspective may have some benefit or value, smile.

I must admit when I first saw the headliner I braced myself and was prepared
to cringe. I thought of the times when my son was in elementary gym class
and they said he did "great" and was "like all the normal kids" and
participated, when their definition of independent participation was to
totally stop the ball game and hand him the ball. There were also frequent
gym classes where the teacher feared he may be injured and he was sent to
sit out the class on the floor by the wall at the edge of the gym. I am also
reminded of a newspaper article that featured Jordan and the reporter felt
it compelling and newsworthy to write that he "bounded" up and down the
stairs on his way to class. Oh for the day when a blind person taking the
stairs or crossing the street is not news, so I sympathize with this feeling
and hope.

On the other hand, the sighted person's reaction to that bit of news on
Jordan surprised me. It indeed broke a stereotype. Unfortunately it WAS news
to many, as well as other regular things he was doing in school. This did
not hurt and in fact helped to dispel false ideas. The reporter did not say
that he was amazing for doing it, he merely mentioned that he did and did it
not only just as a fact but he did it "bounding". People were glad to hear
it. Now we know some people thought that was amazing, but many just got new
ideas and realized the ideas they had previously about blindness must be
off. This is a good thing.

Recently I have had the grandparents of a six month old totally blind baby
contact me. Their son is the father of this baby. The grandparents are
soaking up all our resources and philosophies like sponges; the father wants
nothing to do with "those damn blind people". The father it seems is a
machismo, woodworking, sports, hunt, stereotypical male things guy's guy and
is devastated and can not think of his blind boy baby becoming a real man. 

What do we really have here? A 14 year old guy playing football, yes really
playing it appears. So he benefits from some direction and cues...don't many
things a blind person does benefit from sometimes cues and direction? I am
recalling a blind tractor pull competitor in Illinois, he had a radio on the
tractor and someone gave him directions, but he operated the tractor himself
and he competed regularly. And this teen is competing. If he starts to truly
make his team lose from his mistakes I am sure he will be on the bench and
then cut just like any other player. It is likely that will happen as it is
for many/most of his teammates. Statistically it is likely none of them will
make it to the pros. I thought he did well himself to downplay any notion
that he is SUPER-POWERED with the example of the rain on his helmet. 

He is someone who is not only blind but the survivor of a BRAIN TUMOR~the
fact that his family and his mates are not worried at all about him being
"fragile" makes my heart sing. Oh how many times are blind kids refused
participation in all kinds of things and friendly knocking around because of
the perception of them being fragile?

Maybe somewhere a little blind boy or girl, or a parent heard of this and
thought "Me too". We are rare, this participation is rare, unfortunately
that is a fact. It is good news to me, and I thought the article gave a
presentation of a kid to be admired and not merely just because he is blind.
 
 
Carrie Gilmer, President
Minnesota Organization of Parents of Blind Children
A Division of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of David Dunphy
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:27 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Charlie Wilks- blind football player.(asfeatured
onESPN360)

I guess I'm just put off by this whole perception of how amazing we are in 
the eyes of others when it comes out that we can do something. A guy who can

see finds out a blind person plays football, and that person is a super hero

who should have a hole story done on him. To me, he is just an everyday 
person that found a way to play football that I don't think he'll get far 
with based on what I heard in the article. Sighted people find ways and 
solutions to problems of how they're going to accomplish something all the 
time, and a second thought is not even given to it. We do it, and we're 
amazing. And the fact that he made such a big deal out of something like 
this, by this I mean mingling with his peers, whether it was by playing a 
sport or what ever, suggests that the writer thought that was incredible 
that a blind person can do that. As Harry put it, that to me shows a bias 
there on the part of the writer or a misconception about us. People mingle 
with their peers and find ways to have fun everyday. I personally thought 
the whole thing was corny.
>From David 


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