Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

A pessimist approached me in conversation yesterday. He said to me, “for two years, you have been talking about bringing people together at the skatepark and nothing has happened. He continued, “I look around and nothing has changed. There is no one here and no one knows about what you do.” I sat and waited for him to finish. He was not done. “Skateboarding is not about bringing people together. ‘Scooter kids’ come in and take over with no respect. The students you bring in are not skaters, they have nothing to do with skateboarding. To them, skateboarding is a fun thing they do at a scheduled hour. They are not ‘thrashers.’ You failed Bill and you the true skaters do not even show up at the park anymore. Bringing in  ‘special needs people’ to skateboard is dangerous too. This is not a place for them. They should not be allowed to skateboard here. In here, it is possible to die. The ‘special needs kids’ will never be true skateboarders. It is not right what you have d...

It was Sunday afternoon. I was driving home down one of Stamford, Connecticut’s homes when I saw an elderly manner working with a sledge hammer next to him, a door step with the floor demolished and a heap of rubble next to him. He had a great job to do and was all on his own. A ladder protruded from the whole he had shattered, broken bricks, a pick axe and ten buckets of debris surrounded him. This was great-grandfather Alex Orr. Father of six children, eight grandchildren and one great-grand child. Mr. Alex Orr, an American of Jamaican-descent, married fifty-seven years and still working hard labor as a mason…a brick-layer…a man comfortable wielding a sledge hammer, clearing rubble and making new foundations.  All I could do was pull my car over step out and get his story. I told him that I like to honor servant leaders. In the most sincere tone I could muster, I asked him for his story. My heart was grabbed and a flurry of life lessons came into clarity for me on ...

Action Letter for the Scalzi Originals Foundation  The creation of the foundation is purposed on the facilitation of positively disrupting educational instruction across the United States of America’s public and private systems, as much as it is an exercise in liberty fomenting  social responsibility through the generating of a culture of servant leadership. To this end, ground level operations began in the summer of 2015 in the U.S. state of Connecticut’s Fairfield County with ground zero being at the city of Stamford’s Scalzi Skate Park. A relatively quiet sport, skateboarding has the ability to sync the brain and body in a constant fluid motion making it an excellent life skills activity for typical folk, but more poignantly, for individuals with special needs. These special needs include Downs Syndrome, Intellectual Disabilities and autism, but also include what is commonly known as attentional and executive function skill deficits. Primary act...

The system of operations to raise up the Washington Originals shifts into second gear. Coaching staff is being confirmed and a second town hall amphitheater meeting is set to take place to share the lineup of projects for the youth and families. These include establishing a chess club, outfitting all Washington Originals with jerseys and discussing the funding of basic operations. As of now, Coach EJ, Coach Deuce, Coach Jimmy and Coach Kevin are in collaborative talks with me to facilitate the cognitive-physical programs for Ryan park. Aside from creating a theater and dance program, a chess club for the youth and families of South Norwalk is set to begin this very Fall of 2016. Last but not least, the establishment of a skateboard school that will be the sister arm of the Scalzi Originals Skateboarders in Stamford’s Scalzi Skate Park is being established. I initially started my focus on South Norwalk. Having moved into Norwalk and looking to sign up at the local...

A holocratic organization has been purposefully established at Scalzi Skate Park, in Stamford, Connecticut. Our particular form of holocratic organization is rooted in the concept of leading through service to others and decentralizes leadership allowing the company to be led by any team member. The Scalzi Originals Skateboarding Company has a co-founder base that retains full ownership of the company, yet ideas and tactical leadership implementation from any person in our organization is encouraged, discussed and followed-upon. Everyone matters. The individual strengths of each team member is unique and is integrated supporting increased operations management. What We Do With clarity of purpose, we focus on toning executive function skills, social-emotional skills and cognitive-physical synchronicity by teaching skateboarding to typical youths, as well as those with special needs, like autism and Downs syndrome. Why We Do It We want to serve our community in dynam...

A holocratic organization has been purposefully established at Scalzi Skate Park, in Stamford, Connecticut. Our particular form of holocratic organization is rooted in the concept of leading through service to others and decentralizes leadership allowing the company to be led by any team member. The Scalzi Originals Skateboarding Company has a co-founder base that retains full ownership of the company, yet ideas and tactical leadership implementation from any person in our organization is encouraged, discussed and followed-upon. Everyone matters. The individual strengths of each team member is unique and is integrated supporting increased operations management. What We Do With clarity of purpose, we focus on toning executive function skills, social-emotional skills and cognitive-physical synchronicity by teaching skateboarding to typical youths, as well as those with special needs, like autism and Downs syndrome. Why We Do It We want to serve our community in dynam...

The holocratic business method is alive and well with the Scalzi Originals Skateboarding School. Based in Stamford, Connecticut's Scalzi Skate Park, the Scalzi Originals skateboarding staff focuses on empowering students to focus on developing executive FUNction life skills by skateboarding. Individuals on the autism spectrum, with Downs syndrome or any intellectual impairment are welcome and included in our current roster. The skatepark is in the heart of the city and is the largest skate facility  in a forty mile radius with a growing skateboarding staff is largely made up of local skaters each with different skills and abilities. The company was founded on an idea of using skateboarding as a means to help develop executive function skills in my own students, some of which are on the autism spectrum. Part of this aim involved bringing positive changes to the skatepark. As it was when I first discovered it in the summer of 2015, inappropriate messages and obscene image...

After Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill toured the bombed-out quarters in which Adolf Hitler was finally stopped he found a chair to sit down and catch his breath. Something nagged him. As if the battle was just beginning again. At the time, Stalin and his troops had raced to finish off Berlin ahead of the allied forces. Churchill had put all he had into the war and after that was spent had gone into overdrive to bring about victory. London had come within inches of obliteration by Hitler's forces and now the Prime Minister anticipated an 'iron curtain' falling across all Soviet captured European countries. He focused on reaching a peace deal in Potsdam with Stalin and Truman cogitating day and night how he would leverage the Soviets to a peaceful accord. This was before he knew the full extent of the nuclear bomb test in New Mexico which the Americans were keeping 'under wraps.'  Churchill and Stalin were both 'night owls' and would dine together lo...

(updated 12/28/15) The sloping land directly behind the skatepark is looking cleaner and cleaner. It is a small parcel of land between Scalzi Skatepark and the street hockey rink the community uses seen in the back left of this sketch.   As a teacher I recognize the value in making small changes consistently towards an end goal, especially when an easy answer or solution is not in view. By moving levers, making slight alterations, fine-tuning a little here and there in a consistent manner we actually end up moving very quickly towards attaining a desired goal. This is a strategy learned through repetitive chess play and which the mind unconsciously extrapolates onto other contexts naturally. With this in mind, how would a garden or some basic landscaping in that back sloping parcel change the atmosphere? If people saw that that land was valued by others who came to take care of it, would they be so apt to keep throwing garbage there? Would they still throw their us...

(updated 12/22/15) How do we go about creating and sustaining awareness? How does a person… a community…foster a ripple effect of social responsibility? How shall I be an agent of positive disruption in my community? Why not? Life is short and the days fly by. The Boss (Springsteen) said that we can’t start something if we are always worried about our own world falling apart. He is right! No time to sit idly by or ‘wallow in the mire.’ No longer content to hang back, it is always the time to put the shoulder to the plow for others, especially those who are needy, disadvantaged or forgotten.  It is a new day. There are diamonds where people see them not and there is apathy where all seems well.  The land is ripe for positive disruption. It is time to band together. I story dance a new song You must also Releasing thought and feeling Channelling hope and pain Making amends where it is needed Doing the right thing first Banding together c...

Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian and an Olympic swimming champion was also the number one ambassador for surfing in the world and his home base was Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. This was between the 1920's and 40's. Duke knit a collective of surfer that would take tourists out to catch waves on the giant long boards. It was the first time many ever get presented with such a foreign experience as 'surfing' a wave of water. In surfing, the experience one gets when a natural element like water is pushing them along brings a state of unique rest and contentment. You have to do it to know what it's truly like. Skateboarding parallels in many ways the feeling of surfing. Like surfing and dancing, skateboarding is an effective, practical tool and strategy as an early education/ intervention methods for typical children and those on the autism spectrum, with executive function skill deficits or any other special need or disability. Skateboarding requires focus and sustai...

At the skatepark yesterday, I picked up plastic bottles, beer bottles, beer caps, cigarette butts, abandoned clothes, pieces of broken skateboards, candy wrappers galore and lots of empty cheap cigar packets. I pick up broken glass, napkins, and even more plastic bottles. There seems to be no end in sight to the garbage in that area. Fresh garbage lands like breaking waves each day.  As I was doing this a skateboarder with a Martha’s Vineyard ‘Black Dog’  shirt came into the park and started practicing. He was stiffly working the smaller skate bowl. I could tell his board was brand new. In talking, Josh, a young black man, was very emphatic  several times on his strong desire to get really good at his jumps and tricks on the board. I said all the customary stuff we all know about what it takes to progress. “It just takes practice. Commitment.. and one day at a time you get better at it.” I’m no Tony Hawk by any stretch of the imagination, but I AM in the m...