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

Housing for Adults with Special Needs High-quality at-home/ community 1:1 and Special Educational services for individuals Mentoring services for at-risk youth   Executive function-based Youth Sports programs for youth and adults with special needs operated by qualified special educational professionals Special Needs Housing As of fifty years ago, across the United States of America, including Connecticut and New York, of which the focus is herein, housing for adults with severe special needs was in the form of asylum centers. Since then, awareness in human rights and the rise of special educational services has led to a movement towards state-funded housing and privately-run organizations offering adult-special needs housing. Even so, the waiting list for such housing is constant, and the quality of the housing itself is mid to low-quality in its recreational and residential amenities. It can be aptly put forth that this is a segment of the population that is under...

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...

updated 9:00 pm 3/23/17 A great concern of parents with children who have special needs is the social integration of their children into the community. Most times, those with Downs Syndrome and on the autism spectrum experience social isolation. With autism, the more severe the condition is the greater obstacles exist for social developmental experiences to occur. Social isolationism becomes even sharper as time elapses and the children become adolescents and finally reach adulthood.  How can the community and special needs parents bridge the social divide of typical children and those with special needs? Is it needful to let things be and accept that the task is too monumental to overcome? I put forth the ‘MindCraft strategy’ as a guiding light that may get community to come together empathically for the good of all.  Send Them on Missions It does not have to be a big orchestration, rather a continuous set of experiences that teach real-world life skill...

Children, as they grow up in their formative years form a great amount of their understandings of the world based on their experiences as they are processed emotionally and physically. In this essay, I question how the emotional and physical processing influences behavior and movement. Do our experiences influence how we hold our body? Likewise, do our experiences, especially those in our childhood and adolescence influence how we hold our facial muscles? I posit that the ‘processed’ experiences place a signature mark on our whole selves and we live out our lives with this coded information. I also posit that we are able to change, or re-code this information while toning our cognitive-physical health. The way we walk,  The way we hold our face muscles,  the way we talk the way we dance. Their is a physical, emotional code that is created and affirmed and the ability to change that signature mark can be done practically through purposeful,...

Servant Leaders Come In Full-Force / Surfers Healing #OnePerfectDay in Belmar, New Jersey Click above to see video.

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...

It is few and far in between that two activities, such as skateboarding and surfing, can be found to so completely deliver a strengthening of so many life skills, as well as provide therapeutic benefits all at once. Both individual sports require the dynamic interplay of executive function and cross-hemispheric neural connectivity at heightened levels, placing them in their own pantheon of 'go-to' therapeutic intervention activities to use. In addition, the proprioceptive component that comes on-line and gets toned is of particular benefit to youth and adults with neurological and/ or gross motor skill deficits, such as commonly found with those on the autism spectrum, downs syndrome or varied 'special needs.' Proprioceptivity is our ability to know where our body is and how fast it is moving through space. A surfer's proprioceptive response makes them self-aware of the positioning of their limbs and stance on the board, as well as how fast they are moving...

By replicating a similar model to the servant leadership, holocratic engine that is in operation with the Scalzi Originals Skateboarding Co., members of local skateboarding communities can easily create a teacher group that is grounded around the activity of skateboarding coaches kids, including those with special needs. There are many children who would love to know how to skateboard. Parents who have children with special needs, like being on the autism spectrum can help develop gross motor skills, executive function (prefrontal lobe) and increase the speed and amplitude of their children's brain development overall by consistently having them go train at a skatepark. Having a teacher helps big. No Teacher System A central problem holding back the growth  of community skateboarding at a skatepark like Scalzi Park in Stamford, Connecticut is that there is no organized teacher system. I took an example from a surfing organization of surf teachers and volunteers that come...

updated 1.9.15 8:30 pm  set For the effective educator, knowledge is not absolute power. It is the ability to apply that knowledge that is of greater value. While in Florida, I was introduced by my sister to a friend of hers who is a U.S. Marine veteran. He did two tours in Iraq and fought in the battle of Fallujah. He is an all-American hero and grizzly bear of a man standing close to six and a half feet tall with ‘Wolverine’s’ (Marvel Comics) sideburns. He is and looks like a mighty warrior. His name is Chris and he is the single father to a princess with severe special needs. Her name is Chloe. One of her arms and one of her legs is atrophied. She is five and a half years old. Her current physical challenges prevent her from standing up and walking like most of us. I visited the family home for three hours during my recent family visit to Daytona Beach after the new year. Chloe took my heart. I coached by yielding to her in our first session together. She was not...

If you’ve been to Scalzi Skatepark over the last few weeks and checked on the progress the local skaters are having in our revival campaign, you’d think that progress is slow, to nonexistent . Yet it if you would stay a while, meet the locals and chat with some of of them, you’d know different. We are moving forward at lightning speed! Faster than CERN can split particles actually and at no monetary cost to anyone! As I get word of new skate parks being planned in Fairfield County, the crew and I double our epic commitment to becoming the gems of the country as far as social responsibility goes from the bottom up!  Cello, a top officer and born leader and I are going to our second meeting with another city officer in Stamford to discuss and receive guidance on various new initiatives all aimed at the revitalization and establishment of Scalzi as THE flagship skatepark in the county.  In our multi-fasceted, multi-pronged campaign to reach various milestones,...