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

Santurce, Puerto Rico, USA Latest News: After speaking at length with various municipal government offices, one of them suggested that a signature petition effort to organize the local community around the formalization of the skatepark, garden, and fishing area would serve as a bulwark against government expropriation and possible purchase of the property by a private owner. The ‘Parque Punta Las Marias,’ situated in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s Atlantic coast in the Santurce neighborhood of Punta Las Marias, is heavily protected land by the local residents looking to keep it as a place of urban respite. It has been ground zero for a non-violent, community-driven turfwar symbolizing a microcosm of what has been happening to the island itself. Deep in bond debt, Puerto Rico’s government has looked to develop local industry, garner outside investment, and sell-off land in order to stay as close to solvency as possible. At the same time, many Puerto Ricans have become increasingly invo...

"Practicing kindness and selflessness, you naturally align your life with the integral way." Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching Moments come and go, seasons change, opportunity flies by. What is all that matters? Is it important for the heart to live in accordance with God's will?  When I was fifteen I got on my knees and pleaded with the Lord to make me a Field General in his army. I wanted my life to count for something and understood that I was making a decision to forfeit a life of security and relative comfort in giving myself to the Lord.  Now I realize that he has been drawing me to him, rather than me approaching him on my own volition. In a world where the definition of success appears to be connected to money, my kind of success finds no ground to rest on, save in the eyes of God. In working with typical children and those with special needs, I recognize the value I bring to positively shifting lives. I bring hope, encouragement, enthusiasm, kindness and instruction...

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...

An archer knows the importance of meditating in motion. #BornToRock #CaptainJack For more, go to http://www.CoachBill.US Twitter.Com @CoachBill007 Instagram: CoachBill007 Youtube: CoachBill007

The People United Cannot be Divided Stand with #EachOther to finish off the ouster  of CEO Warren Pena  from the South Norwalk Community Center. Let’s bring in #ServantLeadership that puts others before self first! Let’s give ourselves great programs that empower us: chess art music dance  theater yoga executive function skills coaching academic tutoring social entrepreneurship training  and multiple sports programs Let’s give the homeless hope,  help them be productive and off the streets! Let’s bring in people who care about putting the families of South Norwalk first at  the South Norwalk Community Center Contact via email at CoachBill.US to sign your name and put your heart towards empowering your community.  For more, go to https://www.CoachBill.US Twitter.Com @CoachBill007 Instagram: CoachBill007 Youtube: CoachBill007  

I chose chamomile tea over my usual peppermint tea for the occasion. A night-time city hall meeting discussing the introduction of zip lines as its main agenda piece for the town of Norwalk, Connecticut was published in The Hour newspaper, a local publication for my town.  With coat and tie and colorful socks I attended such a meeting to bring to the foray awareness of a campaign I am championing for the voiceless, poor people of South Norwalk. Entering, I sat in the front facing the council and the sharply-dressed mayor standing to one side. He was addressing the press and the town constituents on this matter and that matter as I made myself comfortable. Taking my seat I put my notebook, my bible and my black hat aside and began to listen. About seventy-minutes into the discussion which swayed from mall zoning and traffic sound issues and the sporadic compliment to council members by people in the audience, it was my turn to speak. “Mr. Mayor, I am a Special Edu...

Over the last half-decade, the move to hide drug-use has gone from disdaining clouds of lingering marijuana smoke that leave blatant evidence to 'now you see them, now you don't' party-pills. Getting wasted on them can easily be mistaken for simply being drunk, especially if the drug-user has a beer bottle or 'drink' in their hand. No one is the wiser and unsuspecting, aloof parents chuck it up to a 'rite of passage' that is mildly looked down upon thinking it is just booze.  Drug distributors across the country have homed in on the popularity of taking drugs in pill format and have created a potpourri of '31 flavors' to cater to all kinds of demands mostly coming from an adolescent and early adulthood (college-age) market.  Injecting heroin with a syringe is passe,' and not at all fashionable. That is what junkies do. The 'cool kids' pop the pills, drink a bit of beer and proceed with their plans of having a good time. It i...

It is possible for one or a group to be so focused on a desired goal that they will begin to relax their convictions on how to go about achieving those aims. Formalities are dropped and insincerity takes hold in situations like this. It becomes necessary to do so once one's principles are put aside and an aim becomes an overarching imperative. Sometimes it is possible that the one or the group bypasses common decency and blinds themselves to good principles. However, it is my experience that achieving great feats is never permanent when one's principles are put by the wayside. In that same fashion, it is quite common to subscribe to bias and unproductive alliances in order to maintain a status quo that is not in line with what is right and good. For a time, this strategy may seem to be victorious in the eyes of the one or that group who have suspended their principles in search of a desired goal or upholding of a desired status quo. History shows that doing the wrong thi...

Paulo had a cane and walked slowly. As I exited the doors he simply stared at me. I could tell he wanted to speak with me. His eyes told me to come over to him and then his arm waived me over. He had as of yet to speak with his mouth. A calm-looking man of few words who paced himself in the few steps he took as I walked over to him. Paulo, of Italian heritage with a U.S. Army cap picked up his cane and pointed it at an aged tree leaning at a 15 degree angle to one side. "Rats eat this tree, " he said to me. "Hi, sir! Ok. Let me see. Show me." "Look!" He pointed with his cane again as we approached the tree stepping off the asphalt driveway. We ambled into the thicket of dead leaves and dry branches. Again, he lifted his cane, this time poking the tree in its rotten belly. "Rats have eaten it up and it will fall." He now pointed to the preschool labeled 25 Valley Drive. I asked him if he knew who I was. He said nothing to that. ...

As we grow up and push towards our goals, whatever they may be, it is easy to get hyper-focused on attaining them. In a family home, bills have to be paid, children's expenses have to be accounted for, and cars need to be maintained.  All this takes energy and consistent effort. For most of us, this entails working hard week in and week out. Everything costs money, except unconditional love these days. In pushing harder to keep ourselves afloat it is not hard for important priorities to take a back seat. The father that has to travel far for work loses out on family time. Children grow day by day and begin to form there understanding of what it is to live a life and how to go about doing so. The parents, for better or for worse, are the models on how to do this. The kids take example and follow suit. Generation after generation patterns are established and entrenched. The legacy of parents comes alive in the youth to a great extent and life repeats itself. However, pattern...

Having the right to bear arms is a constitutional right and an important one. Dad owned a 357 Magnum and a PPK Walter which I got to fire both with him at a shooting range once under strict oversight by him. The blowback on a 357 Magnum is powerful. It is scary. He always put them back in a lockbox with the bullets unloaded and hid it far away from our reach. A gun is quite a weapon. The use of it can and does bring a finality to things. Dad always took care to emphasize the level of safety and responsibility to have with a gun. He was well acquainted with weapons, having been part of special force units for the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Army., as a 101st Airborne Ranger. He parachuted into over 300 countries as a paratrooper. His learning and experience qualified him to handle weapons. Again, having the right to bear arms is a constitutional right and an important one. But should their be a better vetting process for the purchase of guns and large weaponry, like machine gu...

(Updated 11/27/15 2:40 pm) Did you know that Scalzi Skatepark in Stamford is actually called a ‘flow’ park?  That’s a skatepark that has both a a street course and a skating bowl in the same location and having both skating ‘style of segments’ easy flow from one on to the other. At Scalzi, we have two tremendously awesome skate bowls and yet, the ‘street course’ venue is truncated and demure …off to the side sort of. Currently, I am working on landing an ‘ollie?’ I grew up surfing long-boards and not trick skating so I am nowhere near as great on the board as most others at the park, but I have come a long way in just the three months I have been practicing at their. Others do ollies AND kick the board flipping it once or twice in the air as they seemingly hover above it placidly before they land back confidently on it again. Creating independent operating systems tied to a common goal Chris and Brian, are two operating systems within the context of our common ...

Today is Thursday, October 29, 2015. There is hopeful news, but let us take it with a grain of salt. The image of the garbage shown here illustrates that OUR efforts to revitalize Scalzi skatepark are not just wheels spinning in the mud. Truly, it has been a community effort that has encompassed not just physical actions that are easily recognized, such as almost zero new untasteful graffiti, but also a decrease in the amount of garbage found within the skatepark and its immediate periphery outside the gate and its circumference. This could very well be attributed to the mega-storm last night, which would make it rather unappealing to stick around at night at the skatepark, but it could all be attributed to the community outreach by an untold number of stand-up individuals, including skaters of all ages, parents and the Stamford Police. There was indeed new graffiti that I spotted in a hidden corner, which will be taken off (as soon as I get new funds..gotta pay rent:).  ...

I t was made clear to me last night in the darkness of Scalzi skatepark in Stamford, Connecticut why there is hesitancy to bring in night lights. “The crowds it would bring…” I realized that the skatepark would be inundated with people from far-flung places. As skateparks go, Scalzi is definitely not top-of-the-line, yet it is one of the best in the region along with the one in New York City just outside of Chelsea piers.  Last night I stayed longer than usual and saw the park transform, and not for the better. A small crowd of middle school boys and girls drinking, smoking and going into the bushes.   I remember picking up used condom wrappers outside the skatepark fence, leaflets talking about the spread of AIDS and I wondered what would happen to them if they were pushed out and a new crowd would come in. Where would these kids go? What would happen to them? Surely, they would find some other place to party and unwind. So I stayed a bit longer in the darknes...