Dan James: US Paralympic Coach for Wheelchair Tennis
Our podcast is hosted on Anchor
But you can listen in most places such as: Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Radio Republic.
Dan James spent 16 years as the US Paralympic Coach for Wheelchair Tennis in the United States. He coached teams to 11 medals during his international career including 3 gold. During that time he utilized impactful communication to raise awareness, triple budget dollars, and integrate wheelchair tennis into the Grand Slams (US Open). He delivered keynote, workshop, and television presentations throughout the world. He is taking his experience as an elite coach and applying it to impactful communication through storytelling and relationship building.
The basis of all communication is rooted in storytelling. Stories are used daily to connect, inform, inspire, and persuade. Whether on stage, in the boardroom, or at the watercooler, storytelling is the foundation of building relationships and impactful communication.
Story 19 Consulting, LLC, provides communication coaching individually, in a facilitated workshop, or as a keynote speaker. Through a process of self-assessment, building relationships within your communication sector, impact identification, and practice Story 19 can make you a more impactful storyteller and a better communicator.
Machine Transcription provided by Happyscribe
S01E02 Dan James.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enabled Disabled podcast. I'm your host, Gustavo Serafini. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFFG. My journey has been about self acceptance, persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability. Other stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable. Our vulnerability is the foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagined. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
Dan James was the US Paralympic coach for wheelchair tennis for 16 years. In that time, the team won three gold medals and 11 total medals. Danz impact as a coach wasn't just on the court. He utilizes communication skills to raise awareness, triple budget dollars and even integrate wheelchair tennis into the US Open Grand Slam event. Dan is a sought after keynote speaker and has appeared on television presentations throughout the world. Although Dan is still involved with the wheelchair tennis community in Seattle, he's also the founder of Story 19, which offers leadership workshops and personal coaching for executives.
I think Dan's perspective on disability is unique. In a few minutes into our talk, I already felt his open mindedness, his ability to embrace difference and his capacity to bring out the best in people. After listening to this talk, I hope you can feel it to. We'd love to hear your feedback and insights on our Facebook group. Please take a minute, go on Facebook and search for enable disable. Thank you very much and enjoy the episode.
And thank you so much for being here. It's an honor, it's a privilege. I could talk to you for hours. First of all, I'm a I'm a huge fan and playing for a long time. So this right there, we could go on for, you know, for for a long time. And we'll definitely dig into some of that. But I think I agree with you. I think the work you're doing is incredible. I think your experiences as a human being are incredible.
And I'm just looking forward to diving in and, you know, exploring what you have to explore some of those experiences, what you have to say, and we'll go from there. So can you talk a little bit to get us started about your background as a coach? How did that how did that start? Did you play tennis when you were younger? How did that happen?
When I first Gustavo, thank you so much for for having me. And I truly just think this is an amazing project and I'm really honored to be a part of it as it relates to tennis. My dad stuck a racket in my hand when I was five years old. And so I kind of just sort of born to play tennis. And so I played all through high school, college, and then I had dreams of going further in. Those dreams were squashed, but I realized I wasn't that good.
And kind of in a last minute deal, oh, my gosh, I'm not going to be able to play the tour. I became a coach. I became a pro at a wonderful club, but I only had five hours a week. And in recognizing that five hours a week is not going to feed me, I took any drill any less than I could. And someone said, hey, Sunday night there's a group you should you should go teach them.
It was an indoor club in Minnesota. I ran there and I opened the curtains and there was ten people in wheelchairs and I dropped my jaw. I did the best able bodied blessed of my life, which did not work well. And they said, you should really try wheelchair tennis. And I and I said, you know, I'm here with you guys. That's what I do. While I was saying that someone was pushing a chair underneath my blood from behind me.
And so the first time I was doing tennis, I got to play. And at the time, we didn't have a.. Tip wheels. And so I fell out three times and I fell in love and I got adopted by the most caring in the best teachers I've ever experienced in my life who taught me the game of wheelchair tennis. That's really how that Krypton's.
That's really interesting, I played at a club in Chicago where the coach was a the pro was a police officer during the day and he coached tennis. But interestingly enough, after about two weeks of playing with them, he said, look, you know, once a month I coach I bring in some high school or some local high schoolers that are really good. And I have some people who play wheelchair tennis. Would you like to come and live with us one day and experience that?
And I said, absolutely, that sounds fantastic. So once a month, you know, there were several wheelchair tennis players. Some of them were competitive and were actually one of them was was, I think, trying out for the Paralympic team and the other arm around. It might have I mean, this is like nineteen ninety nineteen ninety eight.
It's kind of an open wound as well, might have been I don't I don't remember, but it was just it was a it was an amazing experience to see. And it was me. It was the high school kids, and we were just playing games with them. Hey, how good they were. Right. I have a disability. So people have that same reaction to me. But the the competitive competitiveness of it and their ability to adapt to the game was remarkably.
I'll tell you what, Gustavo, one of the more amazing things for for me was the process of relearning the game. And how quickly the chair disappeared because of the fact that you were putting a puzzle together for each individual, each individual disability had a different manifestation. And so you were being creative in how to play and not worried about the disability world much more than what you can do and how to be successful. And it was such a great journey and the players were so willing to share.
And we solve this puzzle together. And I think I was really just sort of a great life lesson in terms of coming together and looking at the opportunity and not the problem. And it really was just a fantastic way to have a coach player relationship.
Interesting, so. When you say when it first started, you said you got this really interesting education right away, but can you talk a little bit more about. How you evolve that process of adapting them, of learning what they could do to the game to make them better players. Can you give me some examples? Talk a little bit more about what that looks like?
Absolutely. I think I think it's important to say that that that was two or three year journey. It didn't happen overnight. Know, I think there is an Able-Bodied person. You know, I was 22 at the time. This is nineteen ninety two. And there was some some just some barriers for me. What can I do. What can I do. And there was some inhibitions and it really was the players who basically just sat me down and said, look, you know tennis but you don't know wheelchair tennis, you don't know disability.
And honestly, Gustavo, for the first couple of years I was a student, you know, I was quote unquote the coach, but I was the coach being coached. And they took the time to to teach me about disability and the manifestations, literally how to move a chair. What are the what are the challenges in employment and status and hold a racket push. And they helped me to do it. And so I played every week because they wanted me to have that experience.
And then I got to go to a few tournaments very early in my career. Right. I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. My my mentors were Randy Snow, Brad Parks, Nancy Olson, the original legends of American wheelchair tennis. And so they just took me under their wing and they taught me. And I think one of the most important things any able-bodied person going into to a different role can open to is just learning. You know, I supposedly was the expert in tennis, but I wasn't there and I was really OK with that, and I just am so thankful that that people who are like No one in the world, the best players in the world, took time to teach this knucklehead from Minnesota wheelchair tennis.
And I was just it was so humbling and it was so cool. And I think it's really important that that if you dove in and be a college student, be a partner and say it was just I look back at that time is one of the most fun times of my life.
I think it's I think it's really I mean, so you're obviously a very humble guy because how many? Twenty two year olds I know, but maybe I was. Maybe I was. But not a lot of 22 year olds are aren't open to learning. Be as open to being awkward. Again, earlier this year, this really great tennis player, you were able to go pro, but you were obviously really good. You played in high school and college.
And you are able to get awkward again and go into that beginner state of mind to say, like, OK, I'm going to sit in a wheelchair, which you probably never got in your life, and I'm going to learn to play tennis in this chair. That's incredible.
You know, it's really I didn't I didn't get into this story. So when I was 10, I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. So I played with a 15 year olds. And one of them was was Ralph Jacobsen. I knew his family and just a great but he took me under his wing. And so here's this 15 year old playing doubles with a 10 year old in the Wimbledon League of Northfield, Minnesota. We won. I saw the picture.
I saw of the plaque. But I just remember just she always he always made me feel great. And and the fall after that summer, he got cancer and it was very severe, lost both his legs, very traumatic time. We didn't think he was going to make it. And he's now a thriving father. A Lutheran pastor is an amazing guy. But I met up with him my freshman year, some of my freshman year in tennis and my kids.
And he was the life portion. And we played tennis every day because it was rough. I didn't really think about it. In fact, I was doing an interview at the US Open and someone asked me a similar question like, why did you get into wheelchair tennis? And I think about it because I didn't really think of it that way. And it dawned on me, oh, my gosh, Ralph Jacobson opened up that door for me and he made it more comfortable.
And here's this guy who looks like a big brother to me in tennis. And I still give him a great deal of credit for opening the ability for a 20 year old kid to even jump into something like.
Yeah, that's incredible. That's an incredible story. So you took it I mean, you took the experience and you clearly maximized it, too, right? You were willing to be a student again. You were willing to learn. You started. It was it was whatever a lot, he started out with some pretty competitive players, so they were already good at it. And then that just evolved into it became you became more and more passionate about it as you went, you got.
How did you evolve as a coach as time went on?
I think so. It was my volunteer gig. And so but it was it was also my passion. And so when you look back, I'm fifty one now and I'm actually gone from the US Paralympic coach and I've just been a local volunteer again with a local nonprofit. I couldn't give it up. And so we still have a great program here in Seattle. But I look at that evolution and in really wheelchair tennis was so important to me. I played tennis for a lot of different reasons, many of which were not for myself.
Wheelchair tennis was actually the first thing that I decided to do because I wanted to, because it was my passion and it felt very, very true. And I just love the people that I was involved with. And so when I made the decision in nineteen ninety eight, my first world in Barcelona, Spain, and I was kind of a lost soul and went out to the pier on the Mediterranean in Barcelona by myself and staring at the city lights, this beautiful water.
And that was sort of the moment I said, no, this is what I want to do. I want to be the Paralympic coach. I want to make this a career. No career existed at the time, but I just kind of made that decision and where a lot of things just just fell. Right. Unfortunate, fortunate. First Paralympics was Sydney. Two thousand Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama, opened up a position for me to be their head tennis professional.
And so in that time when I made that decision, it was just so fortunate that people were able to support me in being able to do that. And I had the chance to to chase my passion and hopefully create some vehicles for others to find their best self.
So. All has how has the Paralympics and wheelchair tennis have a bunch of questions, like 90 from 98 until until now, I'll have you seen the Paralympics evolve and along with wheelchair tennis, has it has it grown? Has it gotten better, more awareness? Can you talk a little bit about how that organization and the opportunities there have have changed over time?
I've been very fortunate. Obviously, I was the national manager and Paralympic coach for the USA for 13 years. I do a lot of work with the International Tennis Federation and it was pretty amazing to to see the organizations embrace wheelchair tennis and to actually put plans together to to put it on the map. It kind of goes without saying, but I think it needs to be said that there were incredible athlete advocates. I'm sure, as you well know, that it wasn't always we to talk about it.
We don't expect equal respect, fair and fair treatment for wheelchair tennis, for disabled sport in America. That just wasn't happening. And in multiple sports, there are athletes who spoke out, were brave enough to tell their story. And so as much as organizationally we may have made change is the athletes who spearheaded and made disabled sports, specifically wheelchair tennis, relevant. And so I'm eternally grateful to them for that kind of bravery, but also grateful to the organizations for embracing it.
And so you've seen wheelchair tennis go from from relevant once every four years at the Paralympics to now in all four grand slams, we went from from having eight to 12 tournaments around the world to 170 to seven figures in prize money on the tour for a few athletes, not enough yet. But if you missed, a few athletes are actually making a career out of playing wheelchair and they truly are professional athletes.
That's incredible. It's just great. But the thing that so what's sad, though, or what still needs to evolve there, right, is that I'm a tennis fan. I watch all the Grand Slams. I've never seen a Grand Slam Wilcher event televised.
Gustavo, you have a very good point. It actually, ironically, again, haven't worked for for the U.S. Open, I was a director of the U.S. government recompetition a few years involved in the advent of the event as part of the team that brought it to to the U.S. Open. Other countries have historically been better at televising better times than in our own. But that is changing. ESPN shows all courts, including the wheelchair tennis courts, so if you can get on through the different ESPN platforms, you can now see it.
But we want to get to the point where where know Chingo Kunisada, new economy. The two Japanese players actually have a television station, all of them around the world, and they're actually on TV all the time. We need to get to the point where we stop seeing disabled sport or disability period as an evergreen story. And in television, everyone's trying to is something that feels good that time relevant? It's not time sensitive. And we want to start showing the stories that that matter.
I always said the greatest moment possible is for us to go to the World Team Cup and lose first round. And the headline on ESPN Sports Center Beam US suffers a disappointing loss because that means we've made it about the sport. It's no longer about the disability. And as storytellers, we have a choice. The easy story of disability. You know, everybody who plays wheelchair tennis has an inspirational story. We know that. And not that it's not important, but it's only part of the story.
And when you only tell part of the story, it's not important enough to tell the whole story. Their athletes tell the story about the competition, tell the story about how much they've sacrificed to make the US or to make the Paralympics, how hard they've worked. And that's that's something that we need to start hearing and by all means, tell the disability story because it's an important part of who they are and make sure that's only part of the story.
I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. It's it is only part of the story, and we do miss that so much of this special podcast here and it gets built up and as we build the community, that that helps a little bit. But in my experience, playing tennis, for example, sometimes I would draw crowds of people at the club. I'd look up and see 30 people looking down, watching me play, and sometimes nobody cared for me.
That's not why I was out there playing tennis. I was out there playing tennis because I love playing tennis. And I wanted to see how good can I get at something that I love. That was the challenge for me. It wasn't about, hey, look at this guy with a disability who happens to be, you know, but that wasn't that wasn't the goal. And clearly, that's not why the athletes are doing it either.
That's the I would say that that's the shiny new toy syndrome. You so you go to a club and also there's wheelchair tennis and people look at the shiny new toy. It is the people who actually get to know the athletes their journey and start to measure how much they're improving and what and what they're doing. That's that's what matters. I mean, one of my favorite stories, one of our US women's players played the late. US to lead Chinese in an integrated format, so wheelchair tennis is super cool because it is one of the only Paralympic sports that can integrate with its Able-Bodied counterpart.
Wheelchair player gets two bounces, the Able-Bodied player gets one is based on ability, not disability. And I just love that kids are playing on their high school teams. But she said she went out for a doubles match and one of their players just like. Kempler. First back, she said she ripped it down the line for a winner that was over. It was on and it became about tennis. And I think there's no better journey. And if the vehicle for that person getting past that discomfort with disability was was that player hitting the winner by her?
And it became about the tennis. What a cool experience for everybody on that. And so it's about tennis. It's about everyone's journey of growth, whether whether it is a player wanting to get better tennis or someone finding out that disability is just part of something. And it's it's part of that journey.
Absolutely. And that's why one of the reasons why I've always loved sports. You know, with basketball, whether it's tennis, whatever it is, is it was it was a platform or a place where. I didn't have to be judged on a limitation, I could just be judged on how good I was. Mean right now.
You know, I think it's really funny and people always ask, why, why does it do this for why did you choose that? And I don't know that I have a concrete answer to stuff. I don't know that I can say. But I do know that the passion with which the athletes trained and performed was inspired by the disability. And I think it's a really important differentiation. I was with Karen Corb, who is originally from New Jersey. She's blond goddess, one of the most powerful women I've ever met.
She's amazing. And we went to the Bristol headquarters of ESPN to do a demo. And so we were in the meeting room afterwards with some reporters. And one of the male reporters just walked up and said, oh, my gosh, here you are. So inspirational to had just. You're inspired by my wheelchair, you can have it, you don't know me, I'm inspirational because of me. I kid you not. It was the whole room went dead silent.
And I think everyone that was up on that podium to start to smile because only she could say it that way. But what an incredible message. The wheelchair is not an inspirational disability, is not inspirational. If you're inspired, it's because of AM. Now, now, what happened to me, and I think that's the thing that kept me coming back, is these people were just the strength of character and not their disability is what kept bringing me back in.
As a coach. You want to work with people that want to work hard. And so what a pleasure that was.
Interesting. So did you find at. So the first thing it's super important, and I'm just kind of diving into what's going on in the disability community. I've lived my life the way I've lived my life. Now I want to give back. But just to see, for example, this. Issue right where we're so it seems like a lot of people in the disability community have gotten so sensitive about the word inspiration and being inspired by something. And I look at it and I say.
I'm just as inspired by Michael Jordan or Sampras or Andre Agassi, like inspiration is, it should be their right and we should be able to see that as a gift from strength to improve our own lives. So the fact that we're so it seems like there's so much attention focused on, well, we don't want to be. As people with disabilities, we don't want to be the inspirational story in a way, it's sad because we should be, not because of the disability, like you said, but because of who we are as adults.
It really appreciate you mentioning that. I think it's so important to shift the conversation.
Well, it's it's a conundrum because inspiration is never a bad thing. If I've ever had the ability to motivate or inspire someone, I'm honored, you know, but it is because of my actions as an able bodied person. If I've inspired you because of my actions or what I've done or my attitude towards. The danger with what I call empty inspiration and empty inspiration is the person that's up on the roof deck looking down on the tennis court, watching you play tennis, who doesn't know you, and was just inspired that you got out of bed.
That's not OK, that's not that's that's empty, inspirational person who meets you, play tennis with you, gets to know you and is inspired by you, that's genuine. And I think it's a very large difference that that's what I found in the disabled community. Nobody mind being inspirational or inspiring someone because of what they've done or who they are. But for someone who doesn't know them, you're talking about people who are top 10 in the world, that someone came up off the street to watch this tournament and it was just patronizing.
That's hard. And so to differentiate empty inspiration to genuine inspiration, I think is a really important line to draw. And again, part of it is, is the media's fault. And we need to do more storytelling about things that will be genuinely inspiring and go beyond that. And so against that double edged sword of inspiration, it's really hard because we all want to inspire people for the right reasons.
Absolutely. And I really am just amazed that impressed at how a the clarity of your thinking, the experiences that you've had, the way you said it, I mean, that's perfect. I think you're I agree. A million percent. That's just the distinction makes sense. What we're driving at makes sense. And thank you for clearing that up in my head. It makes. Oh, fantastic.
I appreciate that, Gustavo. Look, I said I think I'm the culmination of of all of these athletes adventures that that I've had people that I've worked with in the USA that have just been so instrumental in my own growth and understand that, but also understanding my messaging and what I'm doing now for my job. I'm a communications consultant and I'm using coaching a different vehicle. But the idea of being able to leverage the impact we're talking about inspiration type we miss out on what is the impact of the style playing tennis competition.
That's the most important. You know, and we're not focused on that. We're focused on the impact of, oh, my gosh, what is doing that's so cool. No, it's not cool. Maybe your attitude out there is garbage and I'll let you know because. Yeah, exactly. And again, that has nothing to do with a disability. And so making sure that we're leveraging the right message, the right impact so that genuine inspiration can can occur.
I don't know if that we should have that responsibility, but but unfortunately, I think at least in the short term, we do.
Yeah. One hundred percent. So I like the. Explore that, Danso. Your role right now is as a high performance coach, practically. Talk a little bit more about what you're doing, what that looks like, and then I want to dove in to understand more about how you see what is coaching. What is your role in that?
So it's good news, bad news, twenty sixteen real was my last Paralympic Games, the the USDA moved to Florida and it was requiring everyone to move to the national campus. And my wife and I decided to stay in Seattle. So I actually left the USDA. And I'm now running access to Seattle with some incredible partners, Ulong, Tammy, Anthony Anderson. And we're running a local I'm actually not a high performance coach anymore, but I was a high performance coach from about nineteen ninety eight to twenty sixteen, at which point we got to do everything from grassroots camps, local programs to the Paralympics.
And so the the array of coaching, one of the gifts of wheelchair tennis at the time that I was involved is, is that I got to touch all aspects from dead beginners to two gold medals. And, you know, I feel very fortunate to have been a coach during that time. And like I said, I'm using that coaching now.
So let's talk a little bit more about what you're doing now and how you're using that experience with coaching to help you.
Well, it's twofold. One, we do have access to Seattle, so we're doing programing for wheelchair tennis, autism and intellectual disability. Three different unique streams. They each have their own programs. But the idea is, I think one of the things I'm doing now is communications coaches have really asked everybody to dig into what your ultimate impact is as a human being. What are you trying to do? Start with that. What do you want your legacy to be?
And I tell the story all the time. We were we were at an international junior camp in California, Jason Honeynet, who's now the national manager, USA coach, and doing a great job taking the program to the next level. But we were we were watching the kids, and my ultimate impact was to be the greatest coach. You know, I wanted to win medals. I wanted trophies. I was going to be amazing. And so I'm coaching at this camp and I'm telling you, I was giving them gold.
It was great stuff. And someone comes up to me and shut up. I'm sorry. Are you not hearing what I'm saying is amazing. Shut up to him. And he pointed in here. Are the 18 year olds going to the 12 year old's. And mentoring them and teaching them about disability and creating a role model that I could never be kids, we're trying to do things independently for the first time, asking their parents to leave the court.
And as a disabled child, it was so meaningful and awesome and realized that my tennis coaching wasn't real important in this moment and think it's in that moment that I realized my personal ultimate impact was just to create vehicles, to help people find their best self, whether whether that was to play tennis recreationally and to have something they'd love to help them find out who they are or to win a gold medal. It really doesn't matter. Our job as coaches is just to help someone find their best self.
And I do that now in my communications coaching and with our local program, whether it's tennis leadership. I don't care what it is as a coach, my job is to find the vehicle that's going to help you find your best self. And I think I would have never learned that without the gift of Wilcher talks and I would have never learned that at a deeper, more philosophical level if I were to mention.
So tennis tennis was clearly a huge vehicle for helping people find their best selves, but when you work with somebody now who maybe maybe they're not an athlete at all, maybe they don't care about sports, what does that how do you how do you prevent and help them? Like what does that process look like for either of us for for me as a coach? I think the again, I go back to the early self where I had a lot of information to tell and I talked to right at you and I told you stuff that had everything to do with me and nothing to do with you.
And what I what a terrible way to coach in, so I learned that that it's really a partnership, you know, and we start that process. Whether you are brand new tennis player in our local program or you're an executive at a corporate firm that I'm working with in my business. The first thing we do is just, hey, let's get to know you. Let's get to know what you want. What do you really want to accomplish? Every engagement I have, whether it's tennis or in corporate America.
What is it you're trying to get out of this? What is what is on the other side? Because if you don't know that starting then, then you're not really going anywhere. You're treading water. And so we always start that relationship. Hey, I just want to be able to play tennis with my fiancee, and it's great. We know where we're going now and we know what you want and we can work with that and we are going to work towards that.
Now, if that goal is accomplished, well, we'll start another one. But it's got to come from the person that's been coached that desire. I can't tell you what you want. I don't I can't tell you where you're going. And that's where that partnership happens. You know, I can show you opportunities. I can I can widen your horizons, but I can't tell you where you want to go. And so for me, coaching is a partnership and I'm more of a guide rather than than a teacher.
And so and that served me well, you know, with with the national teams and wheelchair tennis. We didn't live in the same place. You know, I couldn't be with them every day. So I was more of a guide than than anything else. And so it's served me in a really good stead because and it's really developed as some great player client relationships.
Interesting, I would want you as a coach, so I'm just coming down to Seattle. You are welcome any time.
So how do you when you when you were working with. These elite athletes. Was there ever a moment where, I mean, we're all human, right? So I'm sure there were moments where maybe they're feeling down, maybe they're not giving their best. Maybe they're maybe they're just underperforming for whatever reasons. How did you help them kind of break out of that? What did you what did you do to to, uh, to guide them towards back on track?
Well, I think I think as a coach, it's super important that, you know, each person is what drives them. So my my philosophy in conflict problems, you start with communicating forward. You know, hey, what does success look like? Ten minutes from now, ten seconds from now, paint that picture. The next step is we've got a problem. You know, you're not you're not trying. You are afraid. But here's what it looks like in a positive frame if you can do this.
And finally, yeah, there's times that we had to be tough and we fought and people are always like, oh, my gosh. Well, three times I must have been great. No, they're elite athletes. It was hard sometimes there was a lot of attitude and there's conflict like any elite team. And that's actually one of things I cherish because it was so human. And so I think that the biggest thing that I try to do is to really almost just set in that mind, you know, what the opportunity is, what the positive outlook is as much as I can.
And we don't we don't go to the tough conversations that we've exhausted every other option.
And most of the time, would you say you didn't have to get to the tough conversation?
I bet you there's only been three or four tough conversations in 20 years of. Yeah, and again, you know, when you're in the middle of the Paralympics, that conversation is going to be too tough because it's not beneficial. But but as a whole, it really wasn't necessary. And again, these are athletes that mentally are at a level that that a little boost and they were able to do it themselves. Just that good, that talent.
Impressive, our. I'm curious to know, so these these elite athletes, what is there, are you still in touch with them? What is their trajectory look like? What are their opportunities after tennis?
You know, it's really interesting, so so John Reiber was at my first practice in that little club in Minnesota. He's 15 at the time. I love to tell his story because he's in this huge black we call it the Sherman tank here. SuperHeavy was first his first year ever. And then he was actually injured at 13 months and his parents didn't give him a wheelchair. And so he actually played all sports on crutches, including playing in high school J.V. tennis by taking the bottom of his metal crutch off and welding a tennis racket to it.
And he swung the whole crutch. That's stupid. I mean, it's just not stupid in that empty, inspirational way. But athletically, to do that, John, is John is literally one of the best athletes I've ever I've ever had the pleasure of working with. But we developed a very, very close relationship over time. And he went from from being a Paralympian on a World Team Cup team. You know, being right around top 10 in the world is now a high performance coach with Jason.
That's team at the US transition from from playing to coaching. He's also high school coach in Minnesota, very successful. And so I think that that tennis has really given people the opportunity to find out they can. Not only can the. Another athlete that I worked with since she was about 14 was still playing, she's still in the top 10 in the world, but she also got radiology degree and will be working with people when she's done playing. So when we talk about creating vehicles to find himself in tennis, being that vehicle does mean you're going to be in tennis your whole life.
But I mean, you find out how you can succeed if you can succeed in tennis, you can succeed in anything you choose to do. And it's instilling that belief in creating that vehicle that's just so wonderful. And all of these athletes just have that potential, you know, to to take what they've learned about themselves through tennis and apply it to that second part of their life.
And that makes a lot of sense, and I think that's probably one of the most important lessons I learned from playing sports. Is that. I found out that I could I found out that I could get better and I took that confidence and no matter what I was doing, there was there was a reservoir of belief that that was always there, that I love that because have a reservoir of belief. I am totally feeling that is really, really well said.
Thank you.
Thank you. So I'm I'm also interested in learning, I think as as we move forward, maybe you can maybe we can start to formulate an answer is so for. People who do have disabilities, who don't make it for whatever reason, they don't get involved with sports. How can you create those reservoirs of belief and that confidence with something else that they're doing when they're young? Because I don't think we're getting and I don't think they're getting enough of that as as a community, as a society where they should.
Well, I think it starts with message. I'm a I'm a firm believer in participation, not participation trophies. I'll just get that off my chest right now. But I'm a firm believer in participation, meaning when when a disabled child is in school and we hear the story way too often, they've been separated, you know, get them in the choir with them in the band, get them in the chess club. And I don't care what it is, theater or sports, I don't care what it is.
Give them in. You know, in one of the great things about John, Nyberg's your friend, but his parents made him play all those sports, you know, without a wheelchair and you get a spinal cord injury, you did them all in hockey. There's videos of him doing a softball throw contest at the local fair. The expectation was participation, you know, not excellence. But you will try. We have to create that expectation for all children.
I don't care if it's physical disability, intellectual disability, let's get people participating. And again, as a good coach, I want you to find what your passion is. It doesn't have to be my passion. I will find you somebody who's a great coach and your passion. But I want you to have the ambition, find your passion. I think that's one of the messages that we miss sometimes, especially with the younger kids with disabilities, because we separate them instead of saying, no, you're going to do this to you know, we'll figure out how.
I may not know how yet. We're going to figure it out, because I want you to be a part of this. And if we can get that message out, if we can just get people to sing from from every tree, a child's disability doesn't matter. We need to get them involved. That's going to change a lot of attitudes, not only of the children, but of those around them. And so I think that's just incredibly important message.
I don't care what it is. And your passion participant.
That is a great message and I'm going to steal that. And, you know, it's it's just an exchange.
It's just the exchange.
I mean, I think it's really I it's so hard to stop. Oh, please.
Well, I just I just think that that, you know, I look at the opportunities in today's world and there is no reason that a disabled child should be on the sideline, none other so far as to say that it's either fear or laziness. That is the only reason because because there are ways to get children to be involved and I would challenge anybody, I'll take the phone call. How do I do this? I don't know, but I'll help you figure it out.
You know, I will definitely help you figure it out, because it's that important to me.
I mean, I to two experiences as as a child that come to mind that were really helpful for me is I almost drowned and then I learned to swim and my parents took me to the local YMCA and there was like this hard core swimming teacher there, and she taught me to swim. And then she said, you know what? You're going to participate. You're going to you're going to compete with the other kids or you're going to be in the lessons here.
And I did. And I went to a beat and I got third place in the backstroke. Right. Like I wasn't expecting it, but I did it. But she she included me. I participated. That was huge. Later on when I got into basketball and my parents said, OK, well, let's go to some camps. I went to Magic Johnson's camp. I grew up in Los Angeles. I went to Byron Scott's camp. I went to a local camp.
They never said no. They never turned me down. They put me I was in the age groups and made it work. I participated. And they were phenomenal experience.
I think it's amazing. I talked earlier about ultimate impact and, you know, if if that swim coach knew that that you at this point in your life are still telling that story, it's a pretty cool ultimate impact. That's a pretty important thing. Point out the reason she did it. You know, I didn't just because it was the right thing to do, but what a great legacy to to have us chatting about this all the years later. You're still telling that story?
I think that's amazing.
I agree, I agree, and I'll never forget her as long as I live, I'll never forget. But the participation is key. I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head. It's so important to. And there's no reason why we can't participate.
Now and we need to we need to create expectations for the kids with disabilities to participate, but then let's be honest, hey, you're good at this or hey, that wasn't very good. It's OK if you if you tell any other child that they're not good, they're failing or they need to be better and then tell every child and do it in a loving, nurturing way, do it in a way where they have the opportunity to get better. But we also need to start treating our kids with disabilities as kids.
You know, it's not as fragile flowers, let's start treating them as kids, because that's all they want to be.
Absolutely, they're curious. They want to explore. They want to learn, they want to try just like everybody else.
Absolutely.
So then I have one last question for you, and I just want to know here, what have I missed? What did I not ask? Do you think is really important to talk about? I think the the the biggest thing for me in the podcast you're creating is how do we create vehicles for more people like me to get involved? Now, how do we get able-bodied people into disabled sport, into disabled means whatever, whatever it is, and we as a community need to really start recruiting and widening our network so that more people can be involved.
I think that kind of growth, whether it's through media, social media, or are literally just going on saying, hey, do you want to come coach, whatever it is? I think we need to be very intentional about widening the circle of disabled sport in widening the education up to. You and I can talk about this, you are disabled, I've worked in disability support since 1992 and it's very comfortable for a lot of people it's not comfortable.
So how are we inviting them into that for? I think that's a really good conversation for us to have, because the bigger our network is, the stronger our sports are, stronger our communities. And I think it's really important for us to extend that invitation.
Interesting, how do how do we extend that invitation in a way where. They are OK with it's OK to feel right, it's OK to feel a little uncomfortable at first, it's OK to be a little awkward at first. The point isn't to. To stop when you feel when you feel the awkwardness, the point is to embrace it and say, OK, what can I learn from this? What is this really about what I learned? That's how I think of it, is I'm OK when I meet somebody.
And for the first time, if they look at me a little bit weird or they're a little funny or they're a little uncomfortable, that's OK. That's like that's an invitation to to embrace that person, to hold space for that person and say, let me show you something. Let's let let me show you what this is about.
I will I will tell you that I grew up in Minnesota, used humor. And Marianne O'Neil, who since passed just lovely, amazing human being, would also would often say to me, OK, it's all right, you have to be stupid. It's not your fault. And we would laugh and she would give me a hard time. But she really created used humor to create this comfortable atmosphere in my ignorance. And then that was often the launch point where she would say something sarcastic or give me a hard time and then launch into a really important lesson where where something really meaningful in the humor and just giving people permission not to know.
You know, I think I think I said twenty two, I knew nothing. I mean, I really just I was I was totally and completely made in the way that that group welcomed me and taught me and gave me permission not to know. But they also had an expectation that I wouldn't stay there. You know, they we need to create an expectation. You're not supposed to know this yet, but we expect you to learn it. And again, we talk about vehicles.
And while we're educating one more person about disability, disability, life, that's great. But we're widening that network of people who understand. And again, it's just so valuable. And it's it's a bigger network of, hey, do you know anybody that might want to participate, maybe even get more people to play to? And so we have a we have a double a double win there. That that really is just, you know.
Absolutely. That's. This was this was the. I feel so. Alive and energized, and this is great. Thank you so much. And I just I couldn't agree more. I look forward to just beyond this podcast. I really want to explore how we can collaborate more, how we can how we can keep this going, because I'm just the. I don't know, I just I feel so good about this connection and the way you what you're about and what you're trying to do, it's just it's incredible.
You're too nice. You need to take some credit for spearheading this, for finding a team that that's with you, I think of what you're doing is really important work in the end. I think in any way that I can support, I know that I will even behind the scenes, just give me a call. But but I think what you're doing is really important. And I'm super impressed by the decisions you're making to to bring this to to the world through podcast and to to make this information available through so many different voices and so many different stories.
I just I really think it's important work. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of it. I just really, really appreciate it.
You're welcome. Thank you so much.
Helpful links:
Website: www.mystory19.com
Connect with Dan James on Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dgjames70
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dan.james.1919/
