2012-02-01-Operation-Mission-Vision
Seminars@Hadley
Operation Mission Vision – A Return to Normalcy
through Sports and Physical Activity
Presented by
Rich Cardillo
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
February 1, 2012
Dawn Turco
Good morning. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to today’s Seminar@Hadley. Our topic today is Operation Mission Vision – A Return to Normalcy through Sports and Physical Activity.
We have a great presenter with us today. After serving 30 years in the United States Army as a Field Artillery Officer, Rich Cardillo began work with the Military Sports Program as the Coordinator; that’s with USABA, the United States Association of Blind Athletes. And Rich started up with USABA in January of 2008.
Rich works to enhance the lives of disabled veterans and disabled members of the Armed Forces who are blind and visually impaired; working predominately with the Department of Defense, the VA Vision Center of Excellence and the VA Blind Rehabilitation Centers around the United States.
Rich has a three part presentation for us today and we’ll give a little time after each segment for some questions or comments. And I, as your Moderator will take care of those, and as I said, interject the questions at the appropriate moment.
The three parts of the presentation, we start out with I think a basic overview of what USABA is. We’ll here in part two about Operation Mission Vision. Then upcoming Operation Mission Vision programs and opportunities is what we’ll be discussed in part three.
So let’s get under way, enough of me. We thank you for your 30 years of service Rich and welcome you to today’s Seminar@Hadley; you’ve got the microphone.
Rich Cardillo
Well good morning Dawn and thanks very much for the introduction. I normally start my presentations with a question, and pardon the humor, but with a show of hands how many have heard of USABA? And more importantly with a second showing of hands how many have heard about the Military Sport Program? And based upon what I can see from this end I think I’m going to cover both pieces.
So, I would like to share with you though that is for some reason I lose my internet connection, give me about a minute to reconnect. I think I’ve got the battle drill down and I’ll be back as quickly as possible, but I’ve already lost connection twice.
Well let me first talk a little bit about USABA. Shortly after the end of the United States involvement in Vietnam, the US Association of Blind Athletes, or USABA, a non-profit organization based in Colorado Springs was formed to provide life-enriching sport opportunities for all individuals who are blind and visually impaired.
And in 1976, 27 young men and women were selected to represent the United States in the first Olympiad for the disabled in Toronto, Canada. And as a result of this Olympic movement a group of national leaders, educators and coaches of the visually impaired met to discuss the need for an organization to structure, promote and sponsor competitions for individuals who are blind and visually impaired throughout the United States. And that’s when USABA first came to fruition.
We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that does in fact provide life-enriching sport opportunities for every individual with a visual impairment. We’re a member of a the US Olympic Committee and USABA provides athletic opportunities in various sports, including but not necessarily limited to, track & field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, biathlon, judo, wrestling, swimming, tandem cycling, power lifting and our premiere sport Goalball; a team sport for the blind and visually impaired.
In addition to providing people who are blind and visually impaired with athletic opportunities, the second part of USABA’s mission is to change, or attempt to change society’s negative stereotypes concerning the abilities of blind individuals as well as other disabled individuals. Combating stereotypes is achieved through education, through educating the public, through various media avenues, as well as by training athletes to go back into the schools and local community organizations to directly address the disability issues that they face.
So, that’s just a little bit about USABA and I’d like to thank the Hadley School and Dawn for giving me this opportunity to do so. So let’s talk a little bit more about who we are and what we’ve done. As I mentioned earlier, back in 1976 when we first organized and came to fruition, more than 33 years later that same drive and determination fostered by the original 27 athletes lives on today in USABA’s roughly 3,000 members nationwide. The mission of USABA is to increase the number and quality of world class athletic opportunities to all Americans who are blind or visually impaired; from the grass roots, entry level sports and competition, to the competitive elite level.
We are always trying to break free from common misconceptions regarding people who are blind and visually impaired, and to change society’s negative stereotypes concerning the abilities of those same individuals. Over the years USABA has evolved into a national organization that provides the blind and visually impaired competitors a chance to participate in a variety of sports.
As a member of the US Olympic Committee, USABA provides athletic opportunities in both summer and winter sports. And over the past three years, working in conjunction with the US Olympic Committee Paralympic Military Division, USABA has taken on an additional challenge; to help those who have served in the US Military by creating and improving opportunities fro service personnel and veterans who are blind or visually impaired.
Through the new position that I currently hold as the Military Sports Program Coordinator, our organization works to enhance the lives of active duty service members and veterans who are blind and visually impaired. And to accelerate their rehabilitation process through sport, recreation, physical activity and employment, and to assist in the reintegration of those same individuals back into their local communities.
Our program, the Military Sports Program, is focused on all 13 of the Department of Veteran Affairs Blind Rehabilitation Centers. There were 10 and recently they just opened up three more, so a total of 13 around the United States. And with the idea of going out to those blind rehab centers and trying to enhance their own rehabilitation programs through sports and physical activity. We work with the Blind Rehabilitation Center staff and local community based organizations to enhance, and in some cases, develop and implement ongoing recreation and sport program opportunities for veterans and active duty service members of all ages, in an effort to improve the overall rehabilitation program.
With an ultimate goal that when a service member or a veteran leaves a blind rehabilitation center, USABA wants to ensure that he or she is armed with enough information to take those learned skills and successfully integrate into their home towns in order to continue to lead more healthy lifestyles and to identify appropriate participants for local and regional competition.
So that’s pretty much who USABA is, how we came to be, and how we currently got involved with this program, the Military Sport Program with the Department of veterans Affairs and the Blind Rehab Centers. And I’m going to go ahead and take a break right now to see if there are any questions up to this point before we talk more specifically about the Operation Mission Vision component.
Dawn Turco
Thank you Rich, we’ll take any questions that you might have either texting, or if you’d like to use microphone just go ahead and press the control key. And I’m opening the mic up now. I saw a hand go up briefly, one more opportunity, here’s the microphone if you’d like to ask a question or make a comment.
Rich Cardillo
Good morning Laura and I see your text question. The USABA predominately promotes sport opportunities built around the Paralympic sports for the blind and visually impaired. And currently blind curling is not a Paralympic sport for the visually impaired. Now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t try and assist individuals or organizations in perhaps organizing a blind curling team, or in fact, pointing you in the right direction for an existing team.
So we tend to focus most of our sport opportunities, and this is because of our close relationship with the US Olympic Committee, on those sports geared specifically for Paralympic competition. Alright Mary – and Laura I hope that answered your question. At the end I’ll provide my contact information and if you’ve got additional questions that you would like to continue, I’ll continue to answer those as best I can.
Mary Winter asks if there are any rehab centers in St. Petersburg, Florida. The only blind rehabilitation center that I’ve, the VA Blind Rehabilitation Center’s in West Palm Beach, and I’m not very good with my geography so I’m not sure how close that is to St. Petersburg, Florida, but I’ve been there and I’ve visited their facility and they are just getting started with an Equestrian Program, which is kind of neat, and Equestrian is in fact a Paralympic sport for the blind and visually impaired.
Cheryl, the VA website, you can go to the VA.gov website and type in “blind rehabilitation centers,” or you can Google “VA Blind Rehabilitation Centers” and they’ll list all 13 and their locations. And they’re around the United States very quickly, I don’t think I can get them all, but Long Beach, Cleveland, Biloxi are the three new ones, Palo Alto, California, American Lakes in Washington, Heinz, Chicago or Heinz, Illinois, Birmingham, Alabama, Augusta, Georgia, West Palm Beach, Florida, Tucson, Arizona, Waco, Texas, and I think I got them all but I’m not sure.
But basically they’re located around the United States and both active duty, recently injured service members that have lost their vision in combat go to the VA Blind Rehabilitation Centers because the Department of Defense just doesn’t have the facilities available for rehabilitation for service members, so the young men and women actually go to these facilities. But the preponderance of those individuals are typically of the, I’ll use the word “older” generation, or older generations. And most of their injuries, they’re not necessarily injuries, but their visual impairment are due to disease or aging and not so much eye combat related experiences.
Okay, I’m going to – we’ve got one more from Diane Peters on blind tennis organizations, and I’ll be honest with you Diane, I do not work, or know of any blind tennis organizations. But perhaps I can do some research to see what’s out there and what’s available, but right now I do not.
So unless there’s another question, Dawn if it’s okay with you I’ll just go ahead and jump right into part two.
Dawn Turco
Sounds great, you’ve covered them all. Thank you.
Rich Cardillo
Okay. The real reason that we’re all here is to learn a little bit more about Operation Mission Vision and the military component to the US Association of blind Athletes. And more importantly, to highlight some of the accomplishments and the impact that this program has had with some of the veterans that have participated over the past three years. It began in 2008 and has continued since then.
None of this, this part of USABA would be possible without the cooperation and partnership of the United States Olympic Committee, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense. We currently get funding from both the VA and the Department of Defense to sustain this program and we are always trying to look forward to a continued funding source from them.
But in any case, we’re also linked with both national and community based adaptive sports programs throughout the United States, all with the specific goal of enhancing the lives of veterans who are blind and visually impaired. And some of our program accomplishments over the past three years include, we’ve grown our program participants, I guess is the right way to put it. We started with 19 young men in 2008 that were interested in enhancing their personal lives through sport and physical activity.
And today I’ve been able to collect, find, identify, I think we’re closely approaching 330 individuals; these are not 330 young men and women. I think my contact list ranges in ages from the low 20’s to the mid 80’s. And our programming efforts support all veterans and active duty service members, nit necessarily just the ones that have recently lost their vision since September 11, 2001. And those same veterans are living at home and training in local community based fitness centers around the United States.
I’ve got a quote here from Chuck [Sketch], he’s a United States Marine Corp Veteran out of Wildomar, California. He’s blind, totally blind and a double above the knee amputee. His vision loss and his limb loss is not related to combat, but rather to a brain tumor that he had sustained while he was on active duty. But in any case he’s a very active participant in a lot of programs that we offer and a lot of other programs around the United States.
And Chuck says that “Participation in sports has put his life into advanced hyperdrive.” And today, he’s living a life that his sighted friends can only dream of. And I think it’s directly attributed to the programming efforts that Chuck has been actively involved in. And he does things like swimming; he enjoys Nordic skiing, he enjoys the sport of biathlon. He has a specially built tandem bicycle that he gets involved in and competes at local community races and whatnot. And he got introduced into sports back in the summer of 2009 in one of our summer programs, and I’ll talk about those towards the end.
Many of these veterans have recognized the health benefits that physical activity has on improving their daily lives. And a select few of those same veterans have been able to take their level of physical activity and skills to a higher level through the US Paralympic Emerging Athlete Program, in hopes of making the US Paralympic National Team.
And right now we have one, two, three such individuals; we have a female Marine who is trying to make the national team in athletics, or track & field. We have a young man by the name of Chester [Triplett], United States Army from Mooresville, North Carolina who took a liking to cycling, so he is now competing in tandem cycling. And in the course of two years, when he first started, he has recently participated at the US Track Nationals in Carson, California in hopes of making the US Paralympic National Team.
He won the 200 meter time trail and he placed second in the 1000 meter time trial and he’s currently training to participate in the 2012 UCI Paracycling World Track Championships in about two weeks in February. So he’s right at the cusp or the peak of making the US National Team in tandem cycling. We have another young man, brad Snyder, United States Navy, who was recently injured, totally blind, who swam four years at the Naval Academy, so he has some swimming skills and we’re currently trying to get him internationally classified and we hope that he can make some times in order to make the national team in swimming; and all of them over the last two or three years.
And we have 320some odd other individuals who are somewhere between Chester and Brad and Stephanie, I didn’t mention Stephanie Timbers name. But that’s one end of the extreme all the way to down to guys like Chuck Sketch who just want to be involved in sports and physical activity because they see the power and the benefit that that brings into their lives. Through our Military Sport Program we work directly with the VA staff like I mentioned, in order to enhance the rehabilitation programs by assisting them and connecting with local community based organizations. And in some cases, Paralympic sports clubs.
The US Paralympic Committee is organizing these Paralympic Sport Clubs around the United States, again to promote sport and physical activity within local community based organizations. I’d like to site some examples of the some of the work that’s been done at some of these blind rehab centers in order to enhance their rehabilitation programs.
The Southeastern Rehab Center in Birmingham, Alabama currently takes veterans on a weekly basis for strength and conditioning to the Lakeshore Foundation; it’s a local Paralympic Sport Club, probably about 20 or 30 minute drive from the Blind Rehab Center. And the Lakeshore Foundation is another non-profit organization that promotes independence for persons with physical disabling conditions, and provides opportunities to pursues healthy active lifestyles. So there’s a connection there between the VA and a local community organization, which happens to be a Paralympic Sport Club.