Muhlenberg College Celebrates Disabilities Awareness Week November 1-5
Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:39 AM
Major league baseball player Curtis Pride, performer Bill Shannon, Coach Harold Jones and James "Radio" Kennedy from the movie "Radio" a wheelchair basketball game and a series of educational informational programs highlight Disabilities Awareness Week at Muhlenberg College. The programs are offered November 1-5 on the Muhlenberg College campus.
Shannon will present his "Crutchmaster" routine November 1, Harold Jones and Radio will speak November 2, and Curtis Pride will talk November 5. The wheelchair basketball game will be November 3, featuring the Allentown Freewheelers against Muhlenberg College staff and students.
Pride is profoundly deaf, yet has had a lengthy and successful professional baseball career. He graduated from Kennedy High School in Washington, DC, and the College of William and Mary. He is currently a member of the Anaheim Angels, and has played with the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, Montreal Expos and New York Yankees. Pride has won countless national and local awards for his achievements and community service.
Shannon, known as the "Crutchmaster" has performed innovative street/club culture dance creations internationally. He is widely recognized among the disabled artist community as well as in the hip-hop and club dance scene.
Jones, one of the main subjects of the movie "Radio" was a high school football coach at T.L. Hanna High School in South Carolina. He chose to embrace a developmentally challenged African American boy named James "Radio" Kennedy. His selflessness at the time and ultimate role as Radio's mentor has now been immortalized, first in a classic Sports Illustrated story and later in the acclaimed film starring Ed Harris as Coach Jones and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Radio.
In addition to the three headliners, there will be brown bag lectures and presentations each day. The brown bag series includes lectures on creative and adaptive technologies; a presentation on "Rethinking Time and Space from a Disability Perspective" a video of an original play on learning disabilities, "Educating Grover" and sessions on the effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the workplace.
Muhlenberg College
Disabilities Awareness Week
Schedule of Events Novemberg 1-5, 2004
| Monday, November 1 | |
| Noon | Seegers Union Lobby Brown Bag Series Dr. Clif Kussmaul "Creative Technology" |
| 7:00 p.m |
Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance |
| 9:00 p.m. |
Seegers Union Lobby |
| Tuesday, November 2 | |
| Noon |
Seegers Union Rooms 108-110 |
| Noon |
Seegers Union Lobby |
| 9:00 p.m. |
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall |
| Wednesday, November 3 | |
| Noon |
Seegers Union Rooms 108-110 |
| 11:30 - 1:30 p.m. |
Seegers Union, Parents Plaza |
| 7:00 p.m. |
Field House, Life Sports Center |
| Thursday, November 4 | |
| 11 and noon |
Seegers Union Rooms 108-110 |
| 4:30 p.m. |
Trumbower 130, Lithgow Science Auditorium |
| Friday, November 5 | |
| Noon |
Seegers Union Lobby |
| 7 p.m. |
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall |
| 9 p.m. |
Seegers Union Garden Room |
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Sponsors Include:
| Disability Services | 'Berg Bookshop |
| Office of the President | Panhellenic Council |
| Dean for Academic Life | Library |
| Biology Department | Counseling |
| Psychology Department | Delta Zeta |
| Office of Community Service | Office of Multicultural Life |
| Faculty Center for Teaching | Chapel |
| Dean of Students Office | Office of Admission |
| Sociology/Anthropology Department | Sodexho, Inc. & Affiliates |
| Campus Safety | Office of the Provost |
| Office of Academic Support Services | Health Center |
| MAC/Student Activities | Philosophy Department |
| The Wescoe School of Continuing Studies | Newman Club |
| Comfort Suites of Allentown | Human Resources |
| Humanities Seminar | Theatre & Dance Department |
| Department of Athletics | Class of 2005 |
| Class of 2006 | Class of 2007 |
| Class of 2008 |
Curtis Pride
Profoundly Deaf Major League Baseball Player
Curtis Pride was born in Washington, D.C. on December 17, 1968. By the age of nine months, audiological tests confirmed that he was profoundly deaf from birth. At age two, his parents moved to Silver Spring, Maryland and enrolled Curtis in the Montgomery County Public School System’s Auditory Service infant program. He was fully mainstreamed into his neighborhood schools from seventh grade until his graduation from John F. Kennedy High School in 1986.
In addition to graduating with a 3.6 GPA, Curtis enjoyed an outstanding high school athletic career. He broke virtually all of the single season and career records for soccer, basketball and baseball at Kennedy High School. He was also a first team All-American soccer player and a member of the United States National Team that participated in the Junior World Cup in Beijing, China in 1985. As a result of his play for the U.S. Team, Mr. Pride was selected by Kick Magazine as one of the top fifteen youth soccer players in the world.
Just prior to his high school graduation, Curtis - who had already accepted a full basketball scholarship to the College of William and Mary - was drafted by the New York Mets Baseball Organization. Through a unique arrangement negotiated among the Pride family, the Mets and the College of William and Mary, Curtis signed with the Mets as a part-time professional baseball player while he also attended college as a full-time student athlete. He was a four-year basketball starter at point guard at William and Mary and graduated in 1990 with a degree in finance.
In 1992, Mr. Pride signed with the Montreal Expos as a minor league free agent. In 1993, he received a September promotion to the major leagues after batting a combined .324 with 21 home runs and 50 stolen bases in AA and AAA. Curtis made the most of this opportunity as he finished his initial major league season with a .444 batting average, including a memorable double for his first major league hit that resulted in a five minute standing ovation from a capacity crowd at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
In the spring of 1996, Mr. Pride was invited to spring training by the Detroit Tigers and won a spot on the major league team. He was with the Tigers the entire year, thus becoming the first regular full-season deaf player in the modern history of major league baseball. 1996 was, in fact, a breakthrough season for Curtis, as he hit .300 in 267 at bats for the Tigers with 10 home runs and 11 stolen bases. He was also with Detroit for the majority of the 1997 season, and then signed in September 1997 with the Boston Red Sox.
On September 29, 1997, Curtis hit a home run at Fenway Park in his first at-bat for Boston, becoming only the seventh player in the long history of the Red Sox organization to accomplish that feat. In February 1998, Mr. Pride became a member of the Atlanta Braves, one of America's most successful and widely followed major league teams. He hit .252 in 70 games for the Braves in 1998 and played a valuable role in the team's advancement to the National League Playoffs. Mr. Pride suffered an injury to his right wrist subsequent to the 1998 season and had surgery on the wrist in March 1999. He fully recovered from that surgery, and his path back to the major leagues was completed in June 2000 when he was signed to a contract by the Boston Red Sox. In 2001, Curtis rejoined the Montreal Expos. Then in the summer of 2003, he was signed by the New York Yankees and joined the Yankees roster in New York on July 4, 2003. Continuing his flair for the dramatic, on July 6, 2003, Curtis hit a home run in his first game for the Yankees that resulted in a sustained standing ovation and "curtain call" from the sold-out crowd at historic Yankee Stadium. This memorable moment resulted in another collection of national media attention on Mr. Pride's amazing story. During the 2004 season, Curtis signed with the Anaheim Angels - where he played a valuable with the Angels as they won the American League Western Division Championship.
Mr. Pride receives hundreds of letters each year, primarily from young men and women with disabilities or their parents, and tries to make time to personally answer each and every letter. In addition, he makes numerous appearances on behalf of children with and without disabilities. His incredible story has been featured in publications such as Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News and newspapers such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe. The CBS Television show 48 Hours with Dan Rather did a nationally broadcast feature on Mr. Pride in April 1996, and has subsequently broadcast updates to that story in both 1999 and 2003.
Curtis Pride has received countless national and local awards for his achievements and his community service. Recent noteworthy honors include being selected by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce as one of the nation's ten outstanding Young Americans. Mr. Pride was also named the 1996-97 "Role-Model-of-the-Year" by the Alexander Graham Bell Association, and was selected by the Baseball Writers Association to receive the Tony Conigliaro Award, presented annually to a major league player who has overcome adversity through the attributes of spirit, courage and determination.
Bill Shannon
Boundaries Blurred: Hip Hop Dance and Disability
Bill Shannon is a conceptual, interdisciplinary dance and media artist who creates both solo and group projects. He considers his work rooted in street/club culture and informed by the fine arts. He is widely recognized in the dance/performance world, the underground hip-hop and club dance scene as well as the disabled artist community.
His performance and video work have been presented nationally and internationally over the past ten years at numerous venues, festivals and events including, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Performance Space 122, NYC; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR; Central Park Summer Stage, NYC; Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia; Florida Dance Festival, Miami; Theater Artaud, San Francisco; DiverseWorks, Houston; Arizona State University, Tempe; The Athenaeum Theater, Chicago; The Exit Festival, Cretiel, France; Amman International Festival of Independent Theater, Amman, Jordan; The Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland; URB Festival, Helsinki, Finland; among many others.
Shannon's most recent video installation was part of a group exhibition at the Tate Liverpool Museum. He recently completed a project with Cirque du Soleil where he choreographed specific elements for their 2002 production "Varekai" which continues to tour. He has been a keynote speaker/guest lecturer at innumerable colleges, universities and conferences worldwide.
Shannon has been honored with a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award, and a Colbert Award for Excellence: The Downtown Arts Projects Emerging Arts Award. He has received support for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, James E. Robison Foundation, Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, and Arts International: The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals. Shannon holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Coach Harold Jones and James "Radio" Kennedy
Inspiration for the Movie Radio
Program Title - Radio: The True Meaning of Leadership & Mentoring
Sometimes small choices--to be attentive instead of indifferent, inclusive instead of exclusive--make all the difference. For famed, Southern high school football coach Harold Jones, choosing to embrace a developmentally challenged African American boy named James "Radio" Kennedy was truly a life-changing moment. His selflessness at the time and ultimate role as Radio's mentor has now been immortalized, first in a classic Sports Illustrated story and later in the acclaimed film starring Ed Harris as Coach Jones and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Radio (Sony Pictures). At the podium, Coach Jones inspires others to become leaders in their community, urging understanding and tolerance as he recounts his empowering life story.
James Robert Kennedy--nicknamed "Radio" because of his vintage radio collection and his love of music--was an oddity in small town Anderson, South Carolina. Clearly developmentally challenged, Radio pushed a shopping cart around all day, was assumed mute and often was cruelly teased by other kids. But he caught the attention of popular T.L. Hanna High School football coach Harold Jones, who decided to befriend Radio. What began as an uneasy relationship blossomed as Coach Jones earned Radio's trust and enlisted him to help out at football practice and during games, and allowed him to sit in on his classes at school, despite the initial misgivings of the school principal and many of the Coach's own friends. Radio, in return, truly enriched the Coach's life by teaching him the valuable lesson that friendship and family ties are as important as any job.
Ultimately the Coach had to make hard decisions, as members of the community attempted to have Radio barred from the classroom and, after Radio's mother's untimely death, remanded to a mental-health facility. His fight to keep Radio safe and secure in Anderson and as a part of the town's high school football team led the Coach to become a real life hero, champion of humanism, compassion, and understanding. In Coach Jones and in Radio both, the lessons learned include what courage it takes for a person to follow their dream, defy expectations and transcend boundaries.
Coach Jones and "Radio" both still reside in Anderson, South Carolina, where Radio remains the honorary coach, biggest fan, and cheerleader of the T.L. Hanna High School football team.
