S3 E2 Russ Ewell
TTim VillegasApr 10, 2024 at 12:05 pm50min
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00:00Tim Villegas
I'm recording from my living room in beautiful Marietta, Georgia. You're listening to the thick inclusive podcast episode nine, brought to you by Brooks publishing company. I'm your host Tim Vegas. Today I'll be speaking with rescue will the CEO of digital scribbler founder of Hope Technology Group, which started hope technology school, a nationally recognized full inclusion school and founder of EA soccer, an all volunteer inclusive soccer program. I had the pleasure of visiting with him one evening in November of last year, Russ and I discussed the beginnings of EA soccer, and how for all intensive purposes, it happened by accident. We also talked about how sports programs can become more inclusive when everyone has the right attitude and gets training on how to be proactive instead of reactive. Russ even makes me blush near the end of the interview, so make sure to listen to the entire podcast. So without further ado, let's get to the conclusive podcast. Thanks for listening. Joining us today on the thinking cluesive podcast is rescue will the CEO of digital scribbler, which is the creator of communication app quick talk AAC. He's also the founder of hook technology group which started hope technology school a nationally recognized full inclusion school. And also he's the founder of EA soccer an all volunteer inclusive soccer program dedicated to empowering both typical and special needs children of all abilities. Ross, thanks so much for taking some time to speak with us. I'm
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01:50Russ Ewell
excited to be here. It's it's a privilege to be on your podcast and all the think inclusive work that you do inspires me.
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01:57Tim Villegas
Well, thanks, ress you are a man of many hats. That is for sure.
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02:05Russ Ewell
Yeah. I don't know how it happens to me yet.
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02:13Tim Villegas
And so I just read that description. It seems like did you set out to, to start something like this? Or how did how did this happen? Exactly? Well,
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02:30Russ Ewell
you know, I know I did. I didn't set up any of these things. And, you know, my wife probably deserves the bulk of the credit. She's the Executive Director for technology school, she's a real person who put it together old technology group, which I worked with just pretty much, you know, raised the money and, and continues to support the work financially and then in regard to technology. But basically, as a parent of a special needs kid for two who have special needs. I was looking for a way with my sons, my two boys, we have one typical child, I was looking for a way to do something a father son kind of experience with them. This is the mid 90s, mid to late 90s. And I joined some special needs sports, and they were enjoyable, and, and, and my son and I liked them. But having grown up is an athlete and experiencing all the levels of athletics. I didn't realize until I became a parent that a big part of it is it's a family experience the athletics and it's a community experience to do athletics. So what I realized that, especially sports I was involved in, we were off to a different side of the field or the court while everyone else was in a in another place with a typical children. And I that was very different obviously than how I grew up. And I wanted my kids to experience what I experienced which is the complete total community which really now you and I both call inclusion for me is just life and because I was a difficult developing kid and so I came home one day it's it I remember it well and i i I told my wife I said I just don't know how much longer I can do this because you know I'm sitting there and I'm looking and I'm drilling I want my son to be to be with his friends who are in the typical program so his friend to be with him all week long and then they were leaving the time sports and I was like I gotta do sample but I didn't you know what, what was I going to do there was there was either belongs a special need for clean or you tried to be any regular programmer. There's no way you know, he could sustain In the speed, they're moving and all that. And so, long story short, and I'll come back to this, but I reached out to my friends who are all from neurotypical families and with neurotypical kids and Xelement. And I happen to I didn't really realize it, but I happen to have it about six friends who were all high level soccer player for soccer players. And I have been reading and studying because I do that a lot. That's how I tried to figure out what to do next. Because today, as you will know, there's a lot of information for parents with special needs kid. But in the 90s 80s and 70s, even before we came along, and this experience, there wasn't as much, so you had to figure it out. And so I read that East that soccer was more pocketed worldwide. And many reasons it is because I thought soccer was totally boring, you know, you only scored like one to zero. I play basketball. And so I read it. And it said, There's whatever reasons is one, it's not expensive to canvass fifth, eye coordination can factor in hand eye coordination. And I thought about my own kids and how they were and I thought, you know, this could be true. And so we launched them to what eventually became the soccer now, the answer your question is too long winded there. But what happened is, I just got my friends together and said, You know, I really want my kids to experience this on the everybody else's PC. But I had some friends that friends with kids rented out kids, and ended up across the street from our house, or the middle school, getting about 16 of us out there without, you know, you know, XYZ, like 20 of us out there with about six to eight kids. And we just started doing little drills with soccer. And my big vision was, anybody who volunteers with a teenager, a middle schooler, will help them to become really good at soccer. So they can play at a high school level at Lehigh. We want to help the critical care unit special needs kids to develop fine motor, gross motor, whatever we can up with the new development and give them friendships. And as a parent, you get to hang out on the sidelines, like a lot of parents do, and get to know other people and enjoy what really is community experience. So I did that. And it started snowing, and I was happy, my kids were happy. And we had a nice, small group. I think it capped out at 25. And everybody could be there on a Saturday. And then one mother came by and she was like, Hey, can I be a part of this program? And I was not really a program. You know, we don't really have people joining me think about it. I went over to my wife about how many one had people we got it now. I'm not trying to start anything. And she said to me, are you really going to leave this, you know, poor mom all by herself with a kid no help. And I felt so terrible that I said, Okay, I'll let her in. That led to hundreds of more people joining over time for everything I've done the E soccer, the software development, all these things have not been on purpose they've been on. They came by, by necessity by chance. And then I thought it was helping people. So that's sort of the answer that sorry.
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