Interview with Brad Hedrick

Brad Hedrick is the Director of Services for the Division of Rehabilitation Educational Services at the University of Illinois. Hedrick is a former wheelchair basketball player and racer whose credits include coaching several national championship wheelchair basketball squads. He is married to 1984 Olympic gold medalist, Sharon Hedrick.

Q: I know you were a successful basketball player, so how did you ever have any interest in road racing?

BH: Toward the end of my career in basketball, I became interested in road racing and like many people around 1984 I got caught up in the fervor of the introduction of the first track event in the Olympics for wheelchair racing.

So I started in late 82 and throughout 83 kind of training for 1984 and had a short lived and relatively successful racing career. I did not make the final eight in the Olympics, but discovered through that process that the intensity of the training regiment of the wheelchair racers was such that it precluded having any other activity in your life. So I soon discovered I needed to give that up. It was far to demanding a lifestyle for me. I went back to just coaching, giving up the interest in participating in that level.

Q: How did athletics become a part of the university of Illinois' rehabilitation services?

BH: interestingly, the history of the program is such that athletics has always been an integral part of the program. The philosophy of Tim Nugent, the founder of the program was that his job was not only to provide a student with access to the academic forces of the campus, but to afford the student equivalent access to the nonacademic experience and opportunities that exist on a college campus. One significant area of endeavor he thought the students needed equivalent access to was athletics. The University didn't necessarily see it that way and in fact, his promotion of individuals with disabilities in athletics was often viewed as patronizing of those individuals and sort of putting them in display. And he was often criticized by the community at large for holding wheelchair basketball exhibitions because of that perception that he was using them, exploiting them for fundraising and self-promotion. When in truth he was simply trying to provide the students with an equivalent experience. Again the University was not interested in that program. So if you look in the early years and though out the early programs, you'll notice the name of the team, was they named them the Illinois Gizz kids. Exclusively a men's wheelchair basketball team. It was not called University of Illinois because the University would not sanction the program. So therefore the team could not be called the fighting Illini for the same reason. The University would not assist in funding in anyway. So therefore Tim had to create another enterprise, the disabled student organization which was incorporated independently and in effect became the sponsor of athletics. And it was sort of out of that, that organizational structure, the DSO, that the sports program took root. And it gradually, over the many years that followed it's become increasingly a part of the program and more normalized in terms of it's support

Q: How do you recruit athletes to the U of I?

BH: Recruitment is still in our program in its infancy, It's certainly not a very sophisticated approach. We realized early on that it was necessary that we recruit, and I've taken, my approach to recruitment was not the traditional approach of getting in the car and driving many miles and shaking a lot of hands because there was simply no way with so few coaches. Our job was to be here and provide a service to students. So we needed an approach to recruitment that would attract students without necessitating a lot of travel. The strategy that we've implemented was multifaceted. First it linked in the development of instructional media. We, Marty and I have been primary authors on the most often used and most widely read instructional material in both wheelchair basketball and track and field. Then we've also volunteered to serve on the instructional staff for workshops and national camps, just to keep the U of I moniker and our names kind of out in the public. We introduced a junior wheelchair sports camp, a summer camp, a residential camp, again for the purpose of providing the service of offering the instructional opportunities to students that was very unique because most camps for people with disabilities, or young people with disabilities tended to be very recreational. Participation was the objective, rather than actually providing skilled instruction and trying to directly improve sports skills. We offered them the opportunity to improve their sports skills while also learning about the campus and the program and hopefully develop a fondness for this campus, which would cause them to want to come here once the graduate from high school.

Q: What are you looking for in a potential member of the U of I team?

BH: Well certainly the first and foremost criterion is their academic standing. Are they students who will benefit from this campus and excel from it? Then secondary, we're looking for students with the desire and work ethic to excel. Unlike our counterparts in the division of intercollegiate athletics, we recognize that we really don't have a really well developed feeder system. Where Kids with disabilities are not being afforded the opportunity at a very early age to be socialized into athletics to acquire and polish skills. Because of discrimination, rampant discrimination in community programs, high school programs, junior high programs, kids with disabilities are denied the opportunity to acquire those skills, interests attitude, and knowledge necessary to have achieved a comparable level of proficiency in adapted sports by the time they arrive on the college campus. So we know that we're going to be doing a lot of fundamental teaching and that our job is not so much to polish a diamond, that sometimes we're working from a piece of coal. Though we certainly appreciate the opportunity to get the extraordinary talent, what we're really looking for is the person who has the motivation and desire and aptitude to achieve, to pursue their potential.

Q: How do you respond to people who think wheelchair athletics are not really sports?

BH: well, number one that's patronizing, and I think that reflects a bigoted perception of disability. I mean I realize, right up front that we tend to equate athleticism with sort of the Greek physical ideals. I mean we look at those old Grecian earns and we see those perfect bodies and somehow we think athleticism relates directly with those perfect physical specimens. And we can't possibly imagine someone who's not physically that ideal body type being able to exemplify athletic excellence. I mean it just doesn't fit, and because immediately, we have that perception it puts us into a mode of the patronizing appreciation. We don't really appreciate the individual's athleticism, but what we think they've overcome. Which in effect is presuming because I don't know whether if anyone without a disability could ever understand what a person may or may not have overcome in any of their achievements.

Q: How do you change the negative perception of the disabled?

BH: Well I think there are several things that need to be done. I don't think there's a quick fix, I think it's exposure over a long time to behavior on the part of the people with disabilities that refutes the stereotype. I think long term exposure to a Hollonbeck, to a Driscoll, to a Hedrick, over time erodes those beliefs. Over time they can accept the person with a disability and put them on a more even footing. I think the area that we're seeing that having occurred the most is been in wheelchair road racing where athletes with disabilities compete in the same events as the able body. I think you'll find no greater level of camaraderie among elite athletes who are able bodied and disabled, then you'd find in that sport. Because the elite runners have had so much contact with elite wheelchair racers, they know how much they train. They know how rigorous it is. They understand that the sacrifice required is equivalent, maybe even often times greater. And they respect the accomplishment of the athlete, not because that person has overcome anything, but because that person has sacrificed to excel at a level that is remarkable in their sport. And their accepted as peers and I think the more we can report that level of contact and that amount of awareness, the more we can negate that kind of perception.

Q: so you see athletics as the key to changing public perception?

BH: One of the things that Tim (Nugent) impressed upon me early on as a young grad student that it's very difficult to tell everyone about all of the disabilities, to explain in such detail what spinal cord injury is, physically, and what it mean functionally, and how it effects the individual. He said it's an impossible task. But one thing you can do is in one wheelchair basketball exhibition, you could have a demonstration in front of 500 people, and they may not know more about spinal cord injury when they leave that gym, but they would know much more about the potential of the individual with such conditions. And what they would have learned would in all likelihood have dramatically, positively, and permanently effected their attitude and subsequently, their behavior and interactions with individuals with disabilities.

Q: What are the challenges in recruited women to wheelchair athletics?

BH: Well, I think there's a difference demographically because women with severe disabilities are a minority. 75% of spinal cord injured are male. That means men are doing things that predisposed them to spinal injuries. But I think women with disabilities in addition are not socialized to be involved in sports. Even as much as their male counterparts. The disabled in general are not afforded many opportunities for involvement in sport. But women with disabilities are afforded even less. So I think there's a couple of things that are operating there that are negatively affecting women.