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

Mr. Newlin's son on Mount Rainier, Dad took photo A while back I was fortunate to pin down an incredible Dad, Philippe Newlin. He has constantly transitioned and transformed himself across his life and I wanted to share a segment of his life, as well as his thoughts on skateboarding with the public. In and of itself, skateboarding helps us practice important life skills, which can be extrapolated across our life far away from the Olympic sport of skateboarding. Mr. Newlin’s story is quite interesting in that he has steadfastly kept up his mental prowess over the years, catapulting from one endeavor to another without skipping a beat.  Soft skills (which are ‘abstract’ life skills, like humility, perseverance, grit, tenacity) and cognitive executive function skills flexed in his youth on the streets of Manhattan seem to not have lost their mental-muscle power over the years. Mr. Newlin, manages a wine importing business in the United States for a family-owned compa...

In April I go to release the ashes of my late-father with my sisters. Dad was my hero. He passed away at the turning of midnight from 2014 into 2015. Though he was eighty two, his loss was devastating for me. I was tethered to my father. He was my prayer buddy, my counselor and an ever-present force in my life, even after I moved thousands of miles away at the onset of college in Boston. Our connection was a constant one. We thought the same and there was fluidity between us. Many a times we would remark to each other on our extra sensory perception of each other. We would call each other up with something to say and it would be the same thing and we would say to one another, “I was just about to call you to talk to you about that.” To this day I look into his eyes and can here him say, “Son, I love you and I am proud of you. Go get’em!” Dad was magnanimous in the life of his children. He would wake up every morning like a machine at 5:30 to do his exercises. The dude (and I) wo...

I want to honor my Dad who I last saw last on December 6, 2014. He passed at midnight in the Veterans Hospital of San Juan, Puerto Rico on December 31/ January 1, of 2014/5 at the age of eighty-four. One of the best things I learned from my late-father was the over-arching value of cultivating a champion mindset. It is what we call the ‘growth mindset’ today. Every day was important and he approached it with all the readiness and enthusiasm of every day before. He also valued preparedness. Being prepared. The grandfather to my three children was a veteran of the ‘Screaming Eagles’ Airborne Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army. Dad also served in the U.S. Marines and was part of an elite expeditionary force in Korea ahead of the official start of the war. My Dad was an  ‘All-Army’ football player and also padded up for the Rose Bowl. He was there for virtually all my own football games, straight on through high school. He was unstoppable in his ...

It is so important to have strong, male role-models in our families and community. Women alone cannot save the world. We need both parents, and the community to raise our children. It is an all-in effort. That said, the deterioration of fatherhood in many parts of our land is directly hacking away at the foundation of what keeps America moving forward. The importance of having upright fathers who are a positive and nurturing presence in the lives of their children cannot be underrated but must be trumped out in front and protected, if our communities are to have any hope of raising strong, healthy children to lead us forward into each new age.  I think of my own father and his manhood…. My late-Dad could have been Clint Eastwood’s brother. Their is an uncanny physical and personality resemblance. Dad was a rolling stone who was working on fishing schooners traveling from the Southern California coast to Hawai’i by the age of eighteen. He was a sea-cowboy in that face...

My grandmother, who lived for 100 years, had Parkinson's. Throughout my childhood she would send handwritten letters to my sisters and I from California telling us about what she was up to, what Blue the black cat was into or how we were going to meet soon. Her letters were long and she had solid handwriting. Though we visited California yearly,  letters from 'the Golden State' were like magic to me, especially letters from my grandmother. She took the time to write these since I was a little boy. As I entered adulthood the shake in her hands had increased considerably so much that the letters were hard to read and had become illegible after that. Phone calls became more popular. She was cognitively intact for the most part. Though we were far apart from each other, I would visit her on my own every year. Besides my Dad, she was my only other live connection to my Dad's side of the family. This created a great connection between us. The letters from the pas...

Every morning, rain or shine, Dad would make wake me up with his awesome trumpet as if I was in the armed forces with him. He would also play ‘Taps’ every evening to put me to sleep along with his ukelele. In the morning, it was always like 5:22 am. He’d walk me to the shower where I would proceed to fall asleep standing up on the towel rack. At 5:28 he would come back in and motion for me to take my shower. Afterwards, all bright eyed and bushy tailed with lot’s of chirpiness coming from him we would do something called ‘calisthenics’ for the longest 20 minutes ever as I was subjected to the news channel, followed by a 5 mile run. Depending on where we lived, sometimes the run started uphill. It was loads of fun. Halfway through each run we would sprint, usually uphill also and then we would stop to pray and give thanks to God.  Who stops in the middle of their run to pray? But we did. Year after year. I prayed in my own words as a young boy named Billy, not as a Bill. My D...

Is it morning time in your household and you are trying to get the children ready? Some of your kids may be independent enough, but what about a child on the autism spectrum, or some other special need?  Let's work on those executive function and hemispheric skills by making the morning routine on a planned category map. It takes 2-4 minutes to get a piece of paper, pencil or pen, and make 3-4 categories with accompanying morning routine activities. One category can be 'Getting Dressed' while another one can be 'Breakfast & Clean Up,' and a third can be 'Thinking About Your Thinking,' (metacognition). Activities can be organized according to categories, then number them TOGETHER with your child. Convey collaboration and inclusion by having them help fill up the planning map with you. You can make a game out of it where they have to guess activities and categories. After numbering, or prioritizing the map... you start the first numbered activity and cross...

updated 2/7/16 I  consider how incredibly fortunate I am to have had the opportunities that I have been given. I stand on the shoulders of others.  My own family life was not perfect, but I had both parents home, and the strong support of extended family. This post is about what 'mother' means to me, and it is also a social commentary in how I see the role of the 'mother' under constant bombardment in America today.  My mother has been a selfless, sacrificing woman who has gone beyond the point of exhaustion, wit, and strength to see that my three sisters and I succeed. Everyone who knows my mother know about  her connection to her children. We constantly seek to talk with her on an almost daily basis and she counsels us. She does not call us with counsel to give, but we seek her out. ..It is also because her internet phone system automatically answers her  calls putting the caller on loud speaker by error.   Her children seek her out because of...