[Music] um we have an amazing guest speaker for you guys coach isaac but first we're gonna cover a few things follow our socials we post all events pictures from sitting volleyball cute silly pictures we get like a little variety thank you all who came out to the wheelchair dancer social that we had it was a lot of fun we hope to do that again and i hope a lot more people can join next time it was a whole lot of fun all right so the plan for the semester today with amazing speaker the next couple gbms just yet on social next week we have eight nights it'll be fun and kelly will go over what we're gonna do all right sitting volleyball's tonight hopefully you all can make it it'll be at 7pm in peterson gym 241. so we hope to have a great turnout and play some fun volleyball yes and then saturday at 1pm we'll be going to peterson gym to watch sdc women's volleyball um they're competing against the air force so we will be there and everybody also join us to show their support all right and then as i would say we're gonna do paint night this is what we're gonna be painting together over zoom so i have the supplies listed we'll close the slide doctor and just you can have all this by retaining our canvas some paint brushes all these different acrylic paint colors and we'll actually be sending out a google form after this meeting if you guys need paint supplies and you can set up the time we can provide those supplies to you volunteering is later in october but it's cam triathlon i will be also sending out more information to email because there's a sign up on caf website but there's also a google form for us to fill out so we can coordinate and see if we have the same shifts but super fun it's over three days um wheelchair tennis swim and running mobility we hope to see you there all right dudes if you haven't paid dues yet it's 15 to oregano here if you want to be an active member and it goes towards all of our equipment and supplies and providing amazing guest speakers on food for gbms and prizes and stuff for you good good our email list if you want to sign up you'll get updates you'll get the recording minutes and other volunteer opportunities any updates i know you know and then last year groupme um this is like the curricula to join it so again it'll be in the email posted on this is the best way to communicate and post all of our announcements and stuff in there all right and now we have the wonderful coach isaac he's actually the sports coach for the adopted athletics program if you didn't know and also a paralympian which is insane so have you been speaking with us and we actually have a video of him competing um one one second i'm gonna change this to the other side because i think the quality would be better also check them out on instagram okay wait before you play it okay you guys get to see just my arm does that look better okay you guys are gonna have to look and see what's it look like oh my of god came into the third each time of 11 36 so at the moment it's still third and fourth place in the opening peak which you've got to take the farthest loser times that's philly canada and zach skinner no issues with tires for these two though terraces of ireland numerous gold medals across paralympics worlds and europeans just like me today [Music] all right yeah he's tagging our instagram post so please give him a follow and show him some love on his instagram [Music] [Music] how did you get involved oh man so i hope everybody can hear me i'm gonna try my best to project my voice with this annoying mask on my face um well that's a great question um i started adapting sports 2017 prior to that um i competed in able body sports i'm a five-time all-american in a division two track and field uh ncaa champion in the high jump as well so my uh first encounter with adaptive sports was 2017. that's what four years later [Music] does it feel like time flies or you feel like absolutely yeah yeah i mean four years that's like a whole college collegiate uh like career you know what i'm saying that's a decent amount of time so to be able to accomplish what i accomplished in four years i'm extremely blessed and i'm happy grateful um so what about the sports do you actually compete in or just like you can do recreationally which one do you think is your favorite um the only adaptive sports that i compete in is the attraction field but after this past paralympics i was just like man i gotta get into some more sports cause that looks fun like bro go ball insane like that was one of the sports that i watched the most was goldball um just like man it's just it's incredible and then swimming i definitely want to swim uh just for the hell of it i feel like i'll be pretty good at it and well it's oh wheelchair basketball i know i can't be part of it but wheelchair basketball is is lit our wheelchair basketball team men and women phenomenal i i hope that one day san diego state university gets a wheelchair basketball team because that that sport right there that shit's cold excuse me i can swear candy yeah um from my understanding you would have to have a impairment of the lower body i have a visual impairment so i don't think i would classify as a wheelchair basketball player as far as my knowledge is concerned i'm not sure yeah if they allow me to play hell yeah give you a wheelchair i think you have to have a lower body impairment cool okay so what are some of your favorite accomplishments oh man and that is a great question there's been so many not too sound hockey but i would have to say my greatest accomplishment thus far has to have been um acknowledging that i have a disability um i tell this story like so many times but my entire life i grew up like fighting this like thing called like this this whole identity thing i don't even know what you call it but i was just fighting my identity um not really understanding my disability was something that i just struggled with and with that being said i used sports to run away from so every time i would be in school it was hard for me because all my classmates will look at my like tools that i used to see and like oh can i tell you can i do this so i hated school because everybody would look at me like oh like this weird you know what i'm saying it's just like odd but when i went to play a sport it was just like nobody saw my disability so that's where i you know found refuge you know that's where i found my safety you know i'm saying so um being introduced to the paralympics and you know meeting different paralympians that weren't always disabled you know i'm saying like i for i grew up with my disability but if you talk to a lot of other paralympians their disabilities came at like the middle of their life you know what i'm saying like if like this one kid his disability came three years prior to being involved into the paralympics game so it was just like he has so many stories and so many people with so many different experiences it really opened my eyes to sh to be proud and to understand our well yeah you have a disability but look what you are able to accomplish with a disability despite the fact whatever people they say or whatever i'm saying so um really understanding that is by far i feel like my biggest accomplishment to me is because now i have a better understanding of myself i know how to use my disability as far as outlook for other people to be comfortable with themselves and like that so you know just using my experience to help others is like my biggest accomplishment [Music] no okay all right you kind of touched on this but uh do you have any challenges you man track and field has has taught me so much about life you know oftentimes like as athletes we get some we can become so consumed in our sport and we forget a lot about what life is trying to teach us in these moments right so track and field has taught me so much you know saying like every hard practice every meet that just didn't go my way it taught me how to be patient you know i'm saying being patient within the process that i'm going through because a lot of times we become impatient with the growth process you know saying we want to grow so fast we want to be as tall as we can i remember early on in these conversations i'm saying like how i want to be six feet you know i was wearing two too many times shoes or whatnot but it's just like growth happens when it happens and the biggest challenges that i have came across has been in track and field you know i'm saying dealing with different type of people dealing with um a different environment dealing with you know trying to find myself you know i'm saying in this environment that i had no clue what was going on in um and trying to find acceptance you know saying in a place where i don't need to be accepted in you know i'm saying um so track and phil opened my eyes to all these things that you know i were i was i guess ignoring for a long time you know not only was i ignoring the fact that i had a disability i was walking around thinking that life is just sweet you know what i'm saying like i was so comfortable with how my life was going prior to these moments where i just ignored a lot of things where you know now as an adult it's hitting me like with laps right ups down you know what i'm saying it's hitting me all over the place and you know getting an understanding of that is like the biggest thing that i'm happy that i'm understanding you know i'm saying does that answer your question yeah i hope i did answer that but yeah those are the biggest challenges trying to feel thus far what motivates you to do what you do it's not like training is so extensive like how you're like pulling yourself out of bed and like having hot cocoa how do you do it man um because i don't that's that's a great question because like i said i was telling you earlier i forgot your neighbors and everything what was i talking about no oh shoot that's what wait [Music] hey this dude right here man that's crazy one is one of the one of the greatest og status i'm talking about like paralympian gods you feel me work alongside with one of the greatest paralympians of all time that's still competing like july this is his guy runner they just won silver and uh 22 they went down how many silver's the ghosts going on four together yeah so this this thing right here man oh that's a soccer right here um what was the question i got the question um yeah what was the question yeah what motivates you to get out of that like to make sense of training that you do man for real for real to be honest uh ever since i was like a little kid i always wanted to be so great i always wanted to be like the best at someone rather playing basketball football i wanted to be kobe bryant i wanted to be michael jordan if it was football i wanted to be devin hester who was the fastest guy who actually made me want to try to contract wilkie you know i'm saying i always wanted to be the best still do so i think that is my biggest goal and then also by just wanting to make an impact you know what i'm saying and wanting to show people that you can do something and no matter what other people may say man other people may think about you it is possible you just got to believe in yourself so you know um and the biggest thing that i really want to do is impact the youth um just like with today's society and today's world it's really hard to be yourself um so like everything that i do i want to show like you can have that confidence you can have that courage to be yourself and all that good stuff so that's my biggest motivation and also i'm gonna buy my mom my house so until i buy her a house i can't stop working dude yeah now it's extremely motivating to hear because i can't believe you did all this in four years yeah like i know but inspires me too just like in all aspects of life like if you really put your mind to it you really can like accomplish great things all right you talked about like motivating the like inspiring the youth kind of so we were wondering what changes would you like to see in the adaptive sports or paralympic space like over the next five years or just in the future oh man that's a it's a loaded question there's a lot of things that can be changed within our community the one thing that i can see myself doing with being part of that change is just being a move of peace you know i'm saying being someone that to the younger generation can touch and reach out to um and i'm thinking that i'm doing that now with being a coach at adaptive sports and just being part of this program so um i think the biggest thing is just like just being there for that younger generation like not just you know donating money and being like oh i gave back for really being someone that these these younger kids can come to and really get some real ass advice from and uh you know because there's a lot of like bogus people out there in the world that try to play you you know i'm saying in this community um but in every community you know we all face those people but you know just being that one person that you can always say okay he's gonna look out for me uh the way i need to be looked out for and i think if we have those type of individuals which i feel like all everybody in this room and everybody in this organization are we on bi all right so it's more of like the turn to the paralympics so what's the qualification process like for the paralympics like i really have like no idea it's like what'd you do to qualify um as far as being a paralympian or being part of the paralympics as an athlete uh i guess the second one okay um well excuse me excuse me within the paralympics for track and field and other sports there's many different classifications for my specific classification i am a t13 which is the highest uh classification for the visually impaired um you have t13 t12 t11 the lower the number the uh the more the disability does that make sense all right for sure um so um with each classification there's marks um that you have to hit for my particular events i'm a 100 uh meter runner and a long jumper um in order for me to make the team i had to hit an a standard a a standard is a certain mark that our national governing body places uh upon the athlete to hit at trials to be on the team so for example for the 100 meters my a standard was 10 seconds 0.86 so i'll have to either run close to that standard or run faster i ran 1092 which was and you do the calculations they do some whacked out calculation where it gives you a percentage and my percentage was higher enough to make the team and then from that point of making the team it's whoever's the fastest at the games gets a medal so that's pretty much how the process goes i hope i explain that well enough for you guys to understand yeah he did how long is the whole process like you said you have to like reach certain things was it like a year process like how long that's a great question i i'm not going to lie to you but i'm going to give you a uh i think this is the right answer so the process of being on the team goes semi-annually every six months quote unquote uh you have to hit this standard and if you hit that standard you're on the national team that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean that you're on the team to go to the world championships or to the tokyo games right yeah that just means that you have the qualifications to go now when you make it to the trials or to the national championships that's when you have to perform in order to go so that world championships or paralympic games that makes sense yeah all right so um what were some of your expectations going into the paralympics and once you were there how was it different you talked about food a lot man my man my expectations for the for the games was like at first because my expectations changed through time right so at first i was like man it's about to be like christmas out here i get all this gear you know i get to like room with my friends i'm about to be at the olympic stadium i'm about to see all these different athletes culture is about to be incredible but of course you know um it changed because that was my expectations two years prior you feel me and of course kobe hits so my expectations is like well i hope i'm going [Music] you feel me i hope i hope i'm about to be there um so it was just kind of like ah man how is this going to look how many covet tests i'm gonna have to put up my nose spit out like i just didn't know what was gonna go on um and then as it gets closer i'm just like all right well the tickets are set i guess i'm going i don't have covered i'm on my way to tokyo and then i get there and it's just like wow i'm here i opened up my kit the first thing i saw was these like usa slides and i was just like yeah these are my shoes these are my dress i'm putting these on and these are my favorite parts of the kit i saw the socks and i was just like man i love socks i needed them so like from that point it was all good and then i walked outside and i saw a bicycle and i was just like i'm riding it and then i took a little ride around the village and that was just amazing and then you know once we got to the uh actual competition site my heart dropped i was just like wow like it was crazy like the symbol of the olympic greens were there uh the symbol of the paralympic flag was like right on the middle of the track so i'm like standing there and i'm just like mind blown because this is everything i thought it was gonna be and then i screamed and i heard my voice just ringed throughout the stadium i was like oh i am here so it was it was it was it was amazing wow it was great wow that'd be trippy someday yeah somehow i mean you see my jump you know okay uh what was your favorite and least favorite moment in the paralympics oh man um oh shoot okay so my favorite moment of the paralympic games was realizing how real god is um it came at a moment where i thought everything was lost i came out here and i shut the bed and it took place in my long jump competition um prior to the competition i'm feeling amazing physically i'm feeling great i'm like oh yeah i'm about to jump on these dudes heads like they believe about touching about the regular world record and then some um and then for some reason as soon as i stripped off my uh my warm-up my warm-ups it was like the monstars just came out of nowhere and just sucked the power out of me you know from from space jam to suck every single thing last thing out of me and i got on that wrong way and i was just like what the hell just happened i took my first jump it was trash took my second jump it was actually a good jump it was far as hell but i found it took the third jump trash and i'm like what the hell is going on [Music] i can't come out here i'm sorry i'm shivering because it's so cold in here um i'm like what's going on and i'm trying to talk to communicate with the coach that's that's my coach at that time and i'm just like yo what do i need to do should i move back should i move forward should i stay still like do i need to switch shoes like tell me something i need to figure it out because i can't come all the way out to tokyo and not not give me a medal um so she was like relaxed she got three more jumps so we just we just chilled i was like all right man eat some candy you know just chill out drink some water so that's what i did so now we're in the finals i got three more jumps first jump jump off the wrong foot i'm like what the [Music] second jump all right come on man shake it off i'm about to put it down run down the runway jump off the wrong foot again i'm like oh right now i'm sitting in fourth place right i don't even know what the marks are all i know is i'm the fourth place the last one the first one out of getting a medal so i'm like wow oh my god doing them in the stands i don't know how far i thought but i threw them things i'm talking to the clothes i'm like i don't know what to do i don't know what to do the people at in the in the stadium is telling me put your mask on put your mask on i'm like get the out of my face like i'm breaking down like i'm losing my mind at this point because like i'm jumping like this the people telling me to put my mask on i do my goggles all the way in the stands my coach is trying to calm me down and i'm just like i don't know what to do and then it was just like this moment in time where like everything just stopped i don't know what happened but my goggles from all the way up in the raptors came all the way back down and they ended up on my face again and in that moment i said god please show me that you're real like show me how real you are right now and then i went back i talked to the coach i said tell me where my 10th my my my 10th step is in my left leg that's a a reference to how many steps you have to take to get to the board so like i take 10 left 20 steps in total excuse me i'm shivering good lord and mercy so boom she said you're not even close by the boy you're in front of it move back two feet when she told me to move back two feet i looked at her i was like you must be my my two feet i i'm i'm jumping off the wrong foot you want me to move back two feet prior to this moment i've been going through a lot of things regarding track and field um and it put me in a position where i just lost trust in people you know i'm saying i lost trust in myself entirely you know i'm saying and at that moment somebody told me trust trust trust what she's telling you right now this is your opportunity to regain some just trust god damn it you don't say it just trust someone get out of here get out of your own way and trust someone so i was like it but i'm not trusting it's the last jump right or what i got to lose so i move back two feet and i'm preparing to jump and i'm like showing that's real here we go i'm running down the runway and everything felt like i was in my warm-ups and i was running and i was like oh i'm running like here it is this is perfect and then i jumped i ain't know how far it was i was just like i hold my man and then my coach was like in third place i was like how far two centimeters i'm like two centimeters you gotta be kidding me i'm like it's over man like she's about to do something stupid right now because the dude that cat beat me is literally jumping right after me so i'm like i can't live you turn around and i i see them running but i'm like oh don't look they don't look and i looked and he fouled and i was just like let's go and i ran to the opposite end of the pit i gave some random guy a hug and i was just like god dang it we did it and what i learned in that moment um i had to take away a lot of things because i was searching for this anger because i jumped like how i jumped and if you know me as an athlete if you ever like really like god dang it you don't even got to know me as an athlete to know that that wasn't my best performance and it was asking what the hell happened and i was searching for this anger and i couldn't find it because i knew i could do better but i couldn't get angry i could only just laugh because in that moment i realized that you did something bigger than just something physical you know what i'm saying you were able to overcome something mental you know i'm saying you were able to regain the trust that you lost in a lot of people you were able to regain the trust that you lost in yourself you were able to overcome the mental strain that you were put into prior to that competition and come out with the medal and although i didn't even go i won't go you know i'm saying like it didn't come in a form of a ribbon metal but it came in the form of what i have in my heart in my mind you know i'm saying what i can do moving forward so that was the biggest thing that i am more most grateful for from this this journey from the paralympic games um i don't necessarily think i had a bad moment there you know i'm saying i mean i had if you guys kept up with my instagram i had a lot of posts that made suggested you know i was going through things which i was um but looking back at it i had to go through those things to be you know the person i am right here at this moment for you guys because i learned so much through that time um and if i didn't go through it i probably wouldn't be able to sit here and give you you know these stories and my experience the way that i can so i don't think it was a bad moment i only see it as all great moments that's such a good perspective to have got to it's not it's not about what you go through it's how you go through it like it's going to be a lot of bad that's going to happen and you can't allow it to make you better you know i'm saying the world is already a better place we got to be better than the world so you know it's that's the mindset that i decided to live by and you know as long as i do that you know she won't be fine she won't be taken care of but yeah i don't know you guys right but you can wear like a book like you describe this so vividly i just pictured all of it um so check it out if you haven't already leave a review it's my first book i wrote it through uh during quarantine um i never thought that i'd be a writer i only saw myself as an athlete that's the crazy thing i only saw myself as i have doing something with athletics and i'm going through the quarantine going through coded i realize that there's only so many push-ups i can do during the day i have to find something else to do and so i use my imagination and i started to create like my own like universe you know saying i'm gonna be the black marble little keys i heard that here first um and i i began to create stories about just um [Music] people of my culture um as superheroes and stuff like that so my first book is pretty much these three black african-american women who figure out their powers through their ancestry and they have to save the world of this great evil and it's a multi-series book so this first book is out right now i'm in the mode of writing a movie script kind of sort of and hopefully and trying to write that second look but my mind works in so many different ways so i just gotta really wrap my mind around one thing at a time okay have any questions in the chat no all right well we just have like one more maybe like fun question besides being an author too what do you do on your days off or in your free time you're not training that's a great question [Music] i do a lot of random stuff actually but i just listen to music i've i've been lately i've been like listening to old like poems from poets and civil rights activist groups and stuff like that so i've been listening to that just trying to draw inspiration for like future speakings future uh writings that i may come up with and stuff like that so yeah i've been trying to boost my intellect a little bit as a way and if anybody in the chat has questions feel free i am completely transparent you can ask me anything you want to know what color my socks are i'll show you well what color are your socks um i was actually gonna ask since um you're an athlete but also you're also a coach how how'd you relay your experience and honestly like what you gained from competing at that high level to your athlete that you guys correct so what i do um while i can do it because you know i'm young enough to do it i try to lead by example and i train with my athletes so like if you really watch me i'm on the spot i'm talking about my athletes um you will see why and how i became this and that you know what i'm saying because we're all doing the same work and i'm saying i've never allowed i never give my athletes something that i wouldn't do or haven't done before you know what i'm saying i feel like that's the only way to do it um and you know i i pride myself on being very creative and stuff like that so i like to think very experimental so i like to like just do like different random stuff you know i'm saying just to get the juices flowing for my athletes and hoping that maybe i spark some creativity for them when they end up eventually training by themselves because that's one thing another thing i also want my athletes to be extremely independent i don't want them to have to rely on me to be there at every waking moment um so we just we just be going we just doing a lot of random like my athletes i hope they be having fun um they seem like they do it's a it's a good time um so it's just you know i just make sure that my athletes are you know having a good time and just staying on their toes i'm saying really not expecting anything just being in the moment i know some of the athletes have like really high goals too of possibly competing the next paralympics themselves so what are what are things that you kind of say to them to put them on the right track and motivate them to get there i say anything is possible i mean as long as you show up every day and if you have the right mindset and the right heart you know i'm saying that's the biggest thing like i remember quick story true story this happened twice in my life and that's how real it is i remember being so fixated on becoming a division one athlete so prior to me going uh to my university i had to go to a junior college my grades weren't good coming out of high school so i had to catch up my freshman year of junior college outstanding you know i'm saying i can't win anywhere you know i'm saying i jumped six ten and three quarters was my second year doing track and field and i'm like all right if i jump seven then the following year my sophomore year of college i'm definitely going to be one there's no doubt about it so i worked i worked and i lost sight of what the i was trying to do and i'm saying because i was so fixated on jumping seven feet i lost sight of how to run i lost sight of like the mechanics of the high jump i lost sight of a lot of things but i was working so hard have you ever rode a bike in that one gear where you just pedal really fast but you're going nowhere yeah but you're working extremely hard but the bike ain't going nowhere that's what i was doing like i was pedaling and i was going anywhere the years before i was just in the moment you know i'm saying and i was allowing things to come with i was allowing the the knowledge of the sport to come i was like i was allowing the work ethic become like i wasn't forcing it and so like i realized that damn i think i forgot the question but i know i was tying it into what you what you had asked me what was the question one more [Music] you're trying like time coaching and being an athlete as well or like motivation oh yeah how are you motivating your girls your athletes are you motivating them so because they have they have high expectations for them oh yeah they're gold exactly [Music] being in the moment you know i'm saying you can't think that okay just because i work so hard i'm supposed to have this yeah just like in school you can get as many degrees as you want and when you graduate you can still be on skid row you know what i'm saying not getting paid worth nothing you feel me so it's allowing yourself to be in the moment experience your own experience understand your experience and then move from it you know what i'm saying and hopefully you move in the right direction it's very and that's what i try to give my athletes because like it's not about making that team it's about what you are able to grow into at the end of this season because the workouts are going to be total you ain't going to want to do this we wake up at four o'clock in the morning four o'clock good morning go to the beach we run on the beach barefooted no shoes on no socks in the water you know what i'm saying for five to six mile every monday you know what i'm saying they come back and do kills on tuesday eight years and then come back on thursday run 60 minutes on grass barefoot it's four o'clock in the morning you know what i'm saying so if you can withstand that you know what i'm saying despite whatever performance you're gonna have you won't come out a stronger person because you were willing to do that not everybody's willing so that's what i give my athletes and hopefully they understand that hopefully i did a good job explaining what i just explained to you to them but at the end of the day these teams are going to be already picked people are already going to have their medalists you know i'm saying picked out at the end of the day you come and you show who you are and you give your experience you do what you do best and that's you i'm saying so and live in a moment that's why i get my ass i was gonna record a video on the instagram asking this last question if you don't mind um okay you might be a little closer no you're good so i wanted to ask where do you see yourself in the next year and then down the road five years and further and just later on [Music] uh when i see myself next year hopefully still here man like like i said man i live so much in the moment i know if i continue doing what i'm doing now um god's gonna continue to bless me and um from five years from now i'll probably be on tv doing something crazy you never know but uh only god knows what's gonna happen for me i don't know well first and a shout out to your future family yes sir shout out to shiloh [Music] thanks for coming out thank you for having [Music] all right thanks for coming out um you guys can go ahead and head out unless anyone has any questions um but yeah all right bye hopefully some of you guys come out to studying volleyball