[nfbwatlk] Fw: [Nfbc-info] Unleashed: Don't Ever Say Can't to Eleni Englert -University of Washington

[Lauren Merryfield]

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred's ol' XP" <regenerative at earthlink.net>
To: "NFB of California List" <nfbc-info at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2012 8:00 PM
Subject: [Nfbc-info] Unleashed: Don't Ever Say Can't to Eleni 
Englert -University of Washington


> http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-crew/spec-rel/090512aae.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
>
>
> Unleashed: Don't Ever Say Can't to Eleni Englert In 40-plus years of 
> coaching, Huskies legendary Director of Rowing Bob Ernst has won national 
> titles, led our country to Olympic gold, basically done it all in his 
> sport. Except what he is about to do now.
>
> []
>
> Photo Shows Eleni Englert and her guide dog Briggs (far left) with members 
> of her boat on the London 2012 dock.
>
> By Gregg Bell
> UW Director of Writing
> SEATTLE - Eleni Englert is two-plus weeks from entering UW. But she is 
> already a Husky like no other.
>
> The 18-year old from suburban San Diego is a world-class rower on a United 
> States national team. She has earned a spot at Washington from one of the 
> legends of her sport, Huskies Director of Rowing 
> <http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-crew/mtt/ernst_bob00.html>Bob Ernst. 
> She has maintained a 4.0 grade-point average from middle school through 
> The Classical Academy High School in Escondido, Calif.
>
> She is 6-feet-2, 185 pounds, an ideal size to row powerfully. She wants to 
> win national championships, plural. She wants to make the U.S. Olympic 
> team in 2016 and beyond. She intends to major in both business and law, 
> and then attend law school.
>
> "This young woman," Ernst says, "she's the REAL DEAL."
>
> Oh, yeah, she is also blind.
>
> Ernst has coached college rowing for more than 40 years, the last 38 of 
> them at UW. He coached the U.S. Olympic team for 12 years into the 1980s. 
> He's done and led just about everything imaginable in his sport.
>
> Except this.
>
> "And I have been around a while," Ernst said Wednesday afternoon, his 
> excitement bolting through his cell phone like lightning.
>
> "It's going to be an ongoing adventure, the kind of deal where you just 
> go, `Holy cow!' I mean, this could be a whole new horizon for us. Because 
> this girl, she is a weapon, man!"
>
> Not only has Ernst never coached a blind rower, he's never even heard of 
> one on an intercollegiate team. Anywhere.
>
> Where might Englert's rowing career lead her and the Huskies?
>
> "Hey, I don't know," Ernst said. "I think the sky's the limit for her."
>
> It always has been.
>
> "I can," Englert says resolutely, "do anything without eyesight."
>
> "THIS IS WHO I AM"
>
> Six years ago, Englert was a five-sport dynamo; she'd played swimming, 
> tennis, soccer, volleyball, and basketball. She was at the top of her 
> class academically.
>
> But suddenly the chalkboards in her sixth-grade classes in Oceanside, 
> Calif., were becoming indiscernible black splotches. She asked to move up 
> to the front of the classrooms. That didn't help. She went to her eye 
> doctor for more tests than a 12-year old should ever have. That didn't 
> help, either. Neither did her parents getting her stronger prescriptions 
> for her glasses.
>
> "Then I couldn't see any of the board any more. My eye doctor wouldn't 
> believe me, to the point of me crying," Englert said. "Every time I see 
> him now he apologizes to me over and over."
>
> Eleni adapted and kept overcoming, so much so that when she finally 
> learned she has Stargardt disease, a juvenile form of macular dystrophy 
> that occurs in one of 10,000 children, it was already in an advanced 
> state. Basically, her retinas have what she likened to "flecks of gold" on 
> them. She has a fist-sized blind spot directly in front of her and her 
> peripheral vision is poor - and getting poorer by the month.
>
> Imagine trying to row - and live life - with a telephone pole constantly 
> at the end of your nose.
>
> Legal blindness is the 20/200 level, with higher figures than that being 
> worse. Englert's eyesight is 20/600.
>
> "There is no cure," she says flatly of Stargardt disease.
>
> She briefly tried a daily regimen of way too many pills in an attempt to 
> stave off worsening eye sight, but that became onerous to her, just not 
> worth it.
>
> "This is who I am," she says.
>
> I don't remember being angry. I thought it was kind of cool, because I 
> started learning Braille.
>
> "I don't remember being angry," she said of learning at age 12 she was 
> permanently losing her sight. "I thought it was kind of cool, because I 
> started learning Braille."
>
> Her best friend is her guide dog Briggs, who has been with her at all 
> times for the last two years. The yellow Labrador leads her everywhere. To 
> class, to shower, to workout, to bed -- and into the adaptive four with 
> coxswain boat she stroked to a sixth-place finish last weekend for our 
> country in the London Paralympic Games.
>
> She sees some faint images outside her direct line of sight, but little 
> else. I could see her through my phone Wednesday with her dark, 
> pulled-back hair and her energetic smile on our video call. I could see 
> Briggs' dutifully at her side - he is as much a part of the U.S. 
> Paralympic rowing team photos as the red, white and blue uniforms. Briggs 
> was passed out at Eleni's feet, exhausted from a long Wednesday of leading 
> her pal through attending adaptive rugby and watching the Americans beat 
> the host British in goal ball.
>
> Englert couldn't see me on her phone as we talked. She, for once, didn't 
> have on her favorite pair of sunglasses she almost always wears to ease 
> the discomfort of light on her damaged retinas. She avoids eating carrots 
> or anything with much vitamin A, because that has shown to somehow make 
> bad even worse.
>
> So what. Her infectious, can-do attitude struck me seconds into our 
> half-hour talk.
>
> Don't even waste your time telling Englert she can't do something. Some 
> have tried the last six years. All have failed.
>
> Take the blowhards at the San Diego rowing club who told her and her 
> mother when Eleni was in eighth grade to go to the other crew club down in 
> Mission Bay. Eleni recalls hearing, "we don't want to have to deal with an 
> adaptive rower here."
>
> Fine. She indeed went to that other club - and became a national-team 
> rower from San Diego's ZLAC (the initials of the first names of the women 
> who founded the club in 1892).
>
> Eleni actually loves this story of the snub by those clowns at the other 
> San Diego rowing club.
>
> "My favorite part of this is that I was rowing on the national team and 
> going to that other club to pick up my younger brother, who was rowing 
> there," she said with pride Wednesday night from the main athletes' 
> village in London, from one of the same apartment-style rooms used by 
> competitors in last month's Olympics.
>
> "I wasn't good enough for them, but I was good enough to be on our 
> national team."
>
> Oh, yes, she's basically told the folks at that other rowing club where 
> they can stick their oars.
>
> She's since gone on to compete in the World Rowing Championships in New 
> Zealand in 2010 and the 2011 ones in Slovenia before these Paralympic 
> Games.
>
> Englert's pride comes through beyond rowing - and not just because she 
> hasn't gotten a B in school since about when nap times were part of her 
> curriculum.
>
> "Hey, I can drive!" she exclaimed. "I am a fantastic driver.
>
> "I just need someone to tell me when to turn."
>
> Uh, Eleni, isn't that illegal?
>
> "Oh, yeah," she said, chuckling. "But so what? I can drive.
>
> "A lot of people see what I have as a disability. I don't. That's just me, 
> it's what I have and what I am. You can find your way around every 
> obstacle in life.
>
> "Like, I can drive. Just not legally."
> []
>
> Photo shows:  Eleni and (far right) with the 2012 USA Paralympic Rowing 
> Team.
>
> FINDING WASHINGTON
>
> Englert is the second-oldest of four children and the only daughter. She 
> and her parents, dentists Jon and Gita, were seeking a university with top 
> academics and a top student disabilities resources program to go with a 
> great rowing team last year.
>
> Eleni knew about Huskies crew because she is friends with 
> <http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-crew/mtt/morgan_kari00.html>Kari 
> Morgan. Washington's sophomore rower is also from Oceanside and was a team 
> captain at ZLAC in high school, when Englert was also rowing in the club.
>
> The Englerts visited UW and brought along Eleni's older brother Michael, a 
> metallurgical engineering major at the University of Utah ("I still have 
> better grades than him," Eleni says, competitively). They were blown away 
> by UW's Disability Resources for Students department. And Ernst's 
> nationally renowned coaching spoke for itself.
>
> "They did the research and found us," Ernst said. "They said after 
> visiting here that this was by far the best university to meet Eleni's 
> needs."
>
> Englert came upon rowing at a conference in 2008 hosted by the National 
> Federation for the Blind, for which Eleni has been a junior chapter 
> president. There was a rowing demonstration at the conference; that's 
> where she got on an erg machine for the first time. She was already six 
> feet tall. Her stroke rate smoked those of the fit paralympic goal-ball 
> athletes who were also at the demonstration.
>
> She remembers her junior coach at ZLAC thinking her so-called disability 
> was an asset in her learning the nuances of the sport. That was when she 
> was trying so hard to look around to see something, anything on the water 
> that she'd almost topple each boat she was in.
>
> "That's great! That's great!" the welcoming coach there kept telling her 
> of her blindness, emphasizing the value of gaining a true instinct and 
> feel for the sport.
>
> Eleni has done far more than just get by since her diagnosis with 
> Stargardt disease. She's excelled into a role model.
>
> She teaches adaptive rowers like herself to learn the sport by the feel of 
> the oars and the boat. She's learned to tell whether an oar is feathered 
> or squared - what angle it is entering and exiting the water -- by where 
> the bolt feels like it is locking the paddle end into the oar's shaft.
>
> She's also become the guiding light for her younger brother Bruce, who is 
> now in high school. Bruce recently was also diagnosed with Stargardt 
> disease.
>
> The disease was found in 1997 to have a strong genetic component, 
> according to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation. Once Eleni was 
> diagnosed, there was a one-in-two chance a second of the family's four 
> siblings would get it.
>
> Bruce's diagnosis further strengthened Eleni's resolve.
>
> "If I freaked out and cried about my condition, that would make my younger 
> brother have a harder time," she said. "Now I'm like, `Bruce! Ha! You are 
> blind like me. We finally have something in common!'
>
> "It's funny, we are the only ones in our family with blue eyes. It's the 
> curse of the blue eyes!"
>
> []
>
> Photo shows:  Eleni (right) and Briggs with Helen Raynsford, a Paralympic 
> rower and former Paralympic basketball player for Great Britain who 
> carried the torch Eleni is holding.
>
> A WHITE HOUSE VISIT, A KENNEL -- AND AN APP
>
> Englert is staying in London through this weekend's closing ceremonies to 
> the Paralympic Games. She wants to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and 
> other sites before she goes home to Southern California.
>
> After a few days there, she and the U.S. Paralympic team will be meet 
> President Barak Obama during a White House visit.
>
> How many Huskies can say they've done that?
>
> Englert's arrives for UW's first day of classes Sept. 24. That will be a 
> day of firsts for her and the Huskies' athletic department.
>
> She is walking on to the rowing team, and that day will bring her initial 
> meeting with her new team and Huskies freshman assistant crew coach 
> <http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-crew/mtt/sykes_colin00.html>Colin 
> Sykes. She will begin training in a boat the next day, with her trusty 
> guide dog leading her onto the dock and up to the shell just like he 
> always does.
>
> Ernst was almost as excited talking about adding Briggs to his program.
>
> "Briggs is a character, man," Ernst says. "He looks just like a puppy, but 
> he's all business. He works hard, and whenever he is stopped and Eleni is 
> in one place he is passed out sleeping, tired from all the work.
>
> "We are going to have a place for Briggs at the shellhouse."
>
> Turns out, Conibear Shellhouse already has two kennels, for the dogs of 
> Sykes and assistant men's coach 
> <http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-crew/mtt/mcgee_luke00.html>Luke McGee.
>
> "My guess is Briggs is going to have his own kennel, too," Ernst says. 
> "But it's not going to be like the rowers do with Luke's and Colin's dogs, 
> petting them and playing with them. Briggs has a job to do."
>
> So does Michael Richardson. The assistant director for UW's Disability 
> Resources for Students office believes Eleni will be the only one of the 
> 600-plus Husky student-athletes with known, substantial vision impairment. 
> It was Richardson's department that so impressed the Englerts on their 
> visit to Washington last year. His office will be providing the services 
> such as Braille boards, note takers if she requests them, and other aids 
> in Eleni's law and business studies.
>
> "A great story," Richardson says of Englert.
>
> This irrepressible force wants to go to eventually work in disability 
> services for youth, after seeing how hard her mother had to advocate for 
> services once her daughter was diagnosed with Stargardt's.
>
> "Through middle school and high school I had a lot of problems getting 
> services," Eleni said. "It shouldn't be that hard."
>
> Ernst says the same thing about coaching Eleni - though because he's never 
> trained a blind person he's not completely certain how this will go.
> It's not like we have to teach her how to row or what a boat is or where 
> the water is. She is a real athlete.
>
> "Hey, we are up to the challenge," the lively coach says. "And it's not 
> like we have to teach her how to row or what a boat is or where the water 
> is. She is a real athlete."
>
> After all, Englert beat out adults far older than her to make the U.S. 
> adaptive team.
>
> "Who knows where this will go?" Ernst said.
>
> It's already taken UW rowing to Microsoft Corp. There Ernst has found a 
> software application for rowing. Enabled by a Bluetooth device, a rower 
> puts on waterproof earphones and can hear what Ernst called the "catch 
> strokes" of everyone in the boat. The application also tells the user how 
> many strokes per minute she is pulling and what distance she has covered.
>
> "It's like a speedometer on your car, for rowing," Ernst said.
>
> Rowing for the blind? Yes, there's an app for that, too.
>
> "This is why you take this job, to learn and experience new things and 
> take on new challenges," Ernst said. "She's rowed stroke on the current 
> boat she's in. She's rowed every seat in that boat. She can do it all.
>
> "I'm really looking forward to coaching her."
>
> As Ernst says, Eleni Englert is the REAL DEAL.
>
> In more ways than one.
>
> About Gregg Bell Gregg Bell is an award-winning sportswriter who joined 
> the University of Washington's staff in September 2010 as the Director of 
> Writing. Previously, Bell served as the national senior sports writer in 
> Seattle for The Associated Press. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 
> 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He received 
> a master's degree in journalism from the University of California, 
> Berkeley, in 2000.
>
> Gregg Bell Unleashed can be found on GoHuskies.com each Wednesday.
>
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