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Where Autism & Disability Inclusion Meets Belonging: The Story of Wolves Basketball Academy with Founder, Jeff Mayerson · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the next episode of the Inch Jones Podcast. As you know, Inch Jones began as a way to celebrate the small wins and the journey of children and their families, mothers and caregivers of profound autism. And one of my favorite things to do is to talk to people that are on the ground doing the work to actually magnify and increase the experiences of children like Millie and Mac. And it has risen so clearly to me that it's people like my guests I have here today that are not only using their time and resources to benefit the experiences of profoundly autistic children, but as a way to remind all of us that the stories of our lives come down to the daily practices and how we do anything. How we do one thing is how we do everything. And today I have Jeff Mayerson here. He is the founder and creator of a incredible program locally here in New Jersey called the Wolves Basketball Academy. And like any great foundation and work, word of mouth is the best way for sales and advertising and is exactly how I came to know of Wolves Academy, through another mom of a participant at Wolves Basketball Academy. And they are an inclusive program of welcoming children from all aspects of the spectrum. But I'll. I'll let Jeff talk a little bit more about that and really dive into what it means to be an active participant in the autism world. Jeff, thank you so much for being here today.
• 1:28
  Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Sarah. I'm really excited about this podcast today.
• 1:32
  Speaker A: Well, tell us your original number one reason why you are aligned and wanted to jump into the autism world.
• 1:44
  Speaker B: Sarah. I fell into it by accident. My older son Brett, who's 28 now, was shadowing a boy in the JCC Rec League, and he was frustrated that he wasn't providing a great opportunity for this kid. And every time the boy was on the floor, my son was next to him. And all the other kids on the team, like, didn't really know what was going on, and they never passed the boy the ball. And he wasn't really involved. He was just running around. And so my son asked me to come and say, you know, see if I can have any suggestions. So I went. And then afterwards, he said, what do you think? And I just said, I think we need to get him in the gym with his peers, with people like himself. And he said, how do we do that? He was 14 at the time, so he was like, how do we do it? I want to do it. Let's do it. So my wife, Karen, she's a preschool teacher at the jcc, and she is really good with. With education. And she knew these two women that started the Newmark School. So she said to me, you should reach out to Regina and Cindy at the Newmark School and run this idea by them and see what they say. So at that point, I didn't. I didn't realize or I didn't even think that the Newmark School would have a basketball program. So I call them up and I meet with them and I tell them my idea. And they're like, this is great idea. What's your training? What's your background? And I start telling them my coaching experience, and they're like, no, what's your special education background? So I don't have one. They're like, well, we love your idea. We love this concept. We have a basketball team here. But for you to do this, like, you'd have to agree to go through some training with us. And I said, I'm in. So I went through probably about 15 to 20 hours worth of training at, you know, in their. At their school with their phys ed teachers just learning how to communicate, learning how to, you know, get a child's attention, learning what to do. And after that, they said, okay, let's run a clinic for our students. So I did, and they were there. And I'm smiling and laughing because we've come so far from that first clinic. So first I walk in and my whole idea was to run it like I would run a normal basketball clinic. I didn't want to say I'm gonna do anything different. Cause my whole idea was, let's teach them different skills of the game. Let's make it fun. Let's make it like a really good time. So I had a whistle. And as soon as I blew that whistle, first half the gym cleared out, right? Because the children just hate that whistle. And Cindy ran over to me and said, oh, you can't use a whistle. So I said, okay. And then halfway through, a train came by in the Newmark School. In their gym, there's a window. And. And as soon as the train came, half the kids ran to go watch the train, right? So while this is going on, I thought it was a disaster. I thought Regina and Cindy were going to say, thanks for trying, but it's not going to work. You know, maybe we'll try again next year. And then a mom came up to me and she said, I really want to thank you. And I said, okay, thank me for what? And she said, what you're doing here. I said, please explain in more detail what. What you think is so good, because right now I'm thinking that I'm failing. And she said, you're actually trying to teach them skills. And I. I see how you're doing it, and I think this is great. Usually in sports programs for special needs children, they. You walk in, especially for basketball, they give the. They give you a ball, they give you a buddy, and you just shoot around. And that's what it's been. And now you're really trying to teach them a program. It's. It's structured. So I said, okay. And Regina and Cindy liked what I did, and they said, let's run a couple more. And after the third clinic, they said, you got this. We don't need to be here anymore. And, you know, you should open it up. You should advertise. So that first year, we probably averaged about 15, 16 kids a week. I used the Newmark school, and then I kept running them. So I used the high school gym in Scotch Plains. I used the JCC gym in Scotch Plains. And I started getting, like, a lot more people coming.
• 5:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: Then the next year, I put my sales hat on, because I've been in sales my whole career, and I was just attacking the NBA.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 6:04
  Speaker B: I said, I want to do something. I want to partner with the NBA, and I want to be able to show, you know, like, show them that there's a need for this. Well, I found out NBA has a group called NBA Cares, and they do a lot of great charitable work. And I kept bothering this one young guy who was an intern, I believe, and he put me. Finally put me through to the head of MBA Cares. Probably took about three weeks of calling three times a week.
• 6:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 6:31
  Speaker B: And she said, okay, what do you want from us? And I said, anything. Anything at all. Because the fact that I wasn't in New York was an issue for them, because they said, like, their New York teams are new. Their teams in the NBA that are local are all New York teams. The Brooklyn Nets and the Knicks. So, you know, what do you want? So first they sent me some posters and some giveaways for the kids, and I'm like, no, I want more than that. Like, I really do. So they said, well, we do these trainings for coaches. We call them NBA clinician trainings. And then we do a USA Basketball certification. So I went. I brought my friend Mike, who runs the clinics with me every week, and we went, and we spent probably about five, six hours with the NBA people, and we got trained with a whole bunch of different coaches. And that is how I Run my clinic. Today I run my clinic exactly how I got trained to run an NBA clinic, which is all the different stations.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 7:25
  Speaker B: And so the NBA then approached me when the All Star Game was in New York City and they said, the All Star game's in New York. We do a clinic. We do a hundred in clinics simultaneously. On Friday of All Star Weekend, we want you to do a special needs one. Are you in? I'm like, I'm in. Like I'm totally in. Mike. And I went into the city. The NBA, it's like a well oiled machine. They had us assigned to a special needs school in Queens. The gym is really, really, really tiny. We had 120 students and all the teachers and I set up the stations. I had eight stations. I usually have like four or five in my clinic. I had eight stations and I had teachers assigned to the stations. And then Andrew Wiggins, who's an NBA player, was assigned to us. He showed up and all the teachers ran over to Andrew Wiggins and feelings like craziness. But it was a really great, great opportunity for me to see the different types of children that are under that special needs category. I had some, I had some children in wheelchairs. I had some children with down syndrome in that clinic. And it was a lot of fun. We had such a great time. And then after that I just started posting about my clinic all over in a lot of special needs groups and autism groups. And that's really when I took off because then we started getting like 30 to 40 kids every Saturday in a clinic. And that station program works because no matter how many children you have, you can just add more stations and then everyone gets to participate and go through the drills and. And then after a couple years I noticed some of the kids were really starting to get pretty good at basketball and they wanted to play games. They didn't want to just do drills and boring, you know, dribbling drills or games. So sick of the fundamentals, they were tired of it. And. And then some parents were telling me their kids were playing in their local rec league. And I was like feeling really good about that. So I said, let me try to. I'm running a league. Because in Scotch Plains, once you're in the high school, if you don't play high school basketball, there's nothing, there's nothing in the town of Scotch Plains to play basketball. Only if you go to like the local, like Hoop Heaven or some of the other places. So I ran a league. A lot of the kids that I coached and we had like, eight teams, and I had a couple. I had two outside teams. Then I went up to the kids and I said, what would you think if I put a special needs chill child on your team? And they were all helping me at my clinic at that point. So they were like, we would love that. That would be so much fun. So we did that. And then I ran the league, which was like the early spring to, like, early summer, and that was so great. The year before COVID which was 2019, I had 22 teams, and it was. There was eight in the younger group, and then there was 14 in the older group. And these and the non special needs kids. I have to tell you, I. I am very confident that I got some, like, awards from the town or whatever. But I honestly feel that Wolves changed like Scotch Plains as a town because we had these two boys, Kyle and Weston. And when they were in the middle school and they were volunteering for me, they started an inclusion club at Terrell Middle School. And that club got pretty big. And in the high school, they kept it going in the high school. And Kyle was a kicker on the football team, and he's kicking in college now, and a lacrosse player, and Weston was the quarterback of the football team. And I would see their Instagrams and I would see their lunch table on their Instagram, and it was kids from Wolves basketball sitting at their lunch table. And I'm just sitting there. I'm like, that's what this is about. And then it just totally clicked. Where basketball is just a vehicle for socialization.
• 11:24
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: You know, I have a couple great stories, but one is there's a boy in my program, Nick, and now he's volunteering for me. And he used to run in these rosy cheeks, this big smile. And he was so excited. And one day he told me it was his birthday, and we sang happy birthday to him. And then his mother said, I want you to know, like, there's like eight kids from the program that are coming to our house for his birthday party. And it's like, the first time I didn't need to get my cousins and relatives to come for his birthday party because he'd always invite his classmates, and a lot of them just wouldn't come. And it was like, I'm like, I want to build this community. Like, I want to build, like, a place where one parents can go and watch their kids play a sport. Parents can go and take an hour off, because on the weekends, I mean, you know, it's. It's 24 7. And I just want to be able to give them a little bit of a break. And then I want the children to become friends. And you've, you've been to a couple clinics so far, and you can see there's like a pockets of kids that have been going together, and now it's like they're friends.
• 12:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker B: And sometimes that's bad because they joke around and they're not, they're not paying.
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Attention, but they're being typical in that sense. I always laugh. I'm like, oh, look at the typicalness of these kids who actually, they're like, oh, yeah, now I got my people. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, yeah, exactly, like start talking and start piling off.
• 12:50
  Speaker B: But that's what I love about it. I'm like, it's not, you know, it's not about, oh, let's get really good at basketball. It's about, let's go and have fun, right?
• 13:00
  Speaker A: I mean, your whole journey that, this conversation, while it's about sport, while it's about basketball, it ends up becoming about humanity. As we were saying before we pressed record, humanity behind all these children, the hope and sort of these extraordinary things that can happen when you and your family, one family says, we can make this better, we can make these, their lives better. Not because you know the answer, but because you facilitate around a sport that is movement based, is community based. It only serves to make that one moment of empathy that your son had what, you know, 15 years ago with, as a shadow turn into this whole entire movement. And, you know, I, I, I can imagine that you never thought in a million years it would become this, this, this grand and this, this big.
• 13:51
  Speaker B: Never even pictured this. It changed the whole dynamic of my family because I have two boys, right? So Adam's 25, Brett's 28 now, and my wife Karen. And when we were all going and, and, and running these clinics together, it just showed my boys, like, you think you're having a tough day? You think you're having a tough week? Like, look what these kids go through. And so I think it made them understand that and it made them not to. You know, I always say, don't sweat the small stuff. And it made them realize, like, yeah, this is like nothing. Like, what am I worried about?
• 14:27
  Speaker A: So you pull back the film. You know, I see it in the ripple effect within my own friend, my college friends, my high school friends growing up. And when you, when, when you're allowed to, when typical families can kind of join in or what I always say is like hold vigil. Like you'll never really be in the room but if, but what you're doing through the wolves, but also what your family and all the families, you're getting as close as you can, you're sitting right outside the door going I see what they're dealing with, I see what they're experiencing. I can take that back into my own world and have an acknowledgement of the, the struggles but also the, the, the which inch zones just came about. These small incremental wins that are celebrated the same way as a milestone would be that they are greatly impactful for the actual day to day humanity of the kids that struggle deeply with almost every aspect of their life.
• 15:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I agree with you. I mean it's also just eye opening with how much one hour a week can change a child or special needs or a typical kid that's volunteering.
• 15:32
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: You know, I mean you see how many volunteers I have.
• 15:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I, I, I will tell you too, I've shared with you. I have a typical oldest who's on the typical travel team in my local town. And she now and I said, I told her, I said oh my gosh, I heard about this great inclusion based special needs basketball program over in Scotch Plains. And you know, as an almost 13 year old, she doesn't really care. She sort of cared, but she didn't really care. And then I was showing someone Millie at one of your stations, this is you know, her second week ever even attending. And my almost 13 year old was like wait, Millie did that? Wait what did she do? And I said, you know, you probably modeled to her so often by us attending all of your games that that wasn't as big of a leap for Millie to go to a basketball thing. Cause she's already heard the sounds of the court, she's already experienced that. But what happened was this magic of a typical sibling then acknowledging her special needs sibling participating in a sport that she probably didn't think her sister could, could attend or, or be a part of.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I agree, I definitely agree. I will tell you that first time I ran a game, you know and we, it was a real game, you know, we had rep, we had scoreboards and the refs totally understood what we were doing. But one of my typical players like threw like this hard like no look pass to because he didn't know who it was. He just saw the person was open and it's like slow motion in my head and I see it going towards his boy Andrew and he lifted up his hands and he caught the ball and then he shot it and it went in. And his father looked at me and was like, woo.
• 17:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:08
  Speaker B: He's like, I thought he was going to get like, hit in the face. And that's the one thing that happened.
• 17:12
  Speaker A: That exact thing happened. That same experience happened when I showed Millie's sister Morgan, one of your, one of your volunteers passing a ball to Millie at one of the stations. And she was, she, she couldn't believe that Millie caught the ball. Because there's a, there's a difference in their motor skills right there. They don't have this preparation as much, but they actually have the impulsivity to actually catch it in a way that, that fits their own neurology and their own motor planning. Whether it's seen as a disability or a slower ability. The, the, the cool, the cool thing is the reaction from the typical family member going, they did it. Oh my gosh. I wasn't even thinking that was going to happen, you know, and it does and it creates. There's something that's really just, I mean, not to be woo, woo. But it's very magical.
• 17:58
  Speaker B: You know, I, I described that in this, in this interview I had two years ago on, on what my Saturdays are like, because a couple of my friends said to me, why do you still do it? You're getting older. And why do you want to go like 16, 18 Saturdays, get up and do this? And I, there's a lot of reasons, but I described it this way. When I show up to the gym, you know, sometimes I'm just tired from a long week, especially if I'm traveling for work. I walk into that gym and it's empty and there's like something peaceful about it, but it's a little lonely. And I'm setting up the gym and then all of a sudden the first couple kids start coming in and I hear the voices and then I hear the balls bouncing. And it's like this energy just like, just like runs through my body. And it just fires me up for the entire day, the entire week until the next Saturday. And it's something like you said, magical about it. And again, I don't think, like, I'm so special. I think I fell into this, like, by accident. And I realized there's a need for these types of programs. And so, like, I know that you speak a lot and that's what I would like to start doing as I get older. Like, I'm writing a book right now. I started writing, I wrote it As a children's book, like, that was gonna have pictures and like, for like, you know, like really, really young kids. And then I graduated high school with this, with an author, and I sent it to her and she said, I think we should, you, you should make this an adult book, a young adult book, and I can help you. So, you know, I'm working on that. And when that comes out, like, that's when I think I want to try to start speaking just to make people aware that if you're frustrated with the sports locally, wherever you are, like, you can start your own. You can. It's not hard. Like, I really fell into this. And then, you know, when you, you, you've attended some of my clinics, I have occupational therapists at my clinics and I pay them, but one of their mothers is an occupational therapist and she won't let me pay her. And she comes every single Saturday.
• 20:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker B: And I watch them.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: It's this stacking effect. You know, I think when I started leaning into advocacy work, a friend of mine who is in a totally different industry, forward facing, she said, she kept saying to me, sarah Rome was not built overnight. And I think that something that's baked into maybe people and individuals like us is that we keep saying yes to these small incremental things that we know at our core is the next right thing to do. And that's also something that's a pillar of my own work is like you never have to solve the entire thing all at once. What's the next right move for building what you want to build from a advocacy or inclusion or special needs thing in your community? But also then when you boil that down, what is the next right thing to do for your child that has a disability or has a diagnosis or is neurodiverse? Because it's never going to be this like scaling from your son 15, 14, 15 years ago to where it is now. It was never going to be an 18 month process. It had to go as such into what you explained because that was the power and why it is what it is today. It was not a. You didn't just flick the light switch on that. It was building where the light was coming from.
• 21:22
  Speaker B: And I think important. Yeah. And you know, and it's such a great community. Like, I've made so many close friends with some of the parents and then the children. You know, I love when the children come back. They're in their early 20s and they want to help and like, they make sure to tell me I'm here to help. I'm not here to. I want to. I want to help.
• 21:41
  Speaker A: I think that we are hopefully. I know that there's some sort of like, bubble's been burst. I think social, you know, we live in this global community right now where everything's online, like the third space, which used to be like church or the lyceum at, you know, whatever, and when we were growing up no longer exists. It's all online. And I think that the missions that you. The mission that you have reminds us that, like, we have to keep putting that third space back into actual humans actually interacting, actually saying, how, how can I help? And support. Because it's symbiotic in so many ways. It helps everyone. And I think that you're able to tell the story through those years and watching everyone come back and realizing it didn't just help the kids that were quote, unquote in need, it was helping everyone around them. And that has a permeating effect in a community.
• 22:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, again, I have stories upon stories. It's been a long time I've been doing it. One time a kid walked up to me with tears in his eyes and he was a volunteer and he was playing in the league and he just said, I want to thank you. And I said, you know, okay, what's going on? And he said, I've had a really, really, really hard time at school and I've been getting bullied and you know, I've. I've had some really bad thoughts and I come here and it just shows me that the world's a good place. And I love. I feel needed, I feel wanted. And kid's doing great. He's in college now and he's doing great. But he, you know, that also showed me like, again, it's not just for the kids that, you know, are on the spectrum or have any kind of an issue. It's for everyone. And that's why I really do feel like it's changed the town to. For. In the positive way. Again, I don't think like I'm changing the town. I just think kids seeing these kids, like, because to your point, everyone's can see everything on social media. Everyone's like on their phones and doing these things. But when they see a child like this at, in the lunchroom or in their classroom, they don't necessarily know what's going on. You know, sometimes the kids say, oh, they're just, they're just weird or they're just strange. But I feel like when they come to wolves, they realize, oh, that's what's happening, right. And I need to show compassion. I need to show like inclusivity. That same boy? Yeah, that same boy, Nick. And this is. I'll. And then I'll stop with my stories. Cause I can go on forever. Um, he walked in one day to the, to the league to. Before the game and he ran up to me and gave me and said, coach, coach, do you know what happened to me today? And he said, I said, no, Nick, what? He's like, Cooper gave me a high five. Do you know who Cooper is? And Cooper was the quarterback of the football team for Scotch Plains. And so I went up to Cooper and I said to him, like, I just want you to know, like that high five had such a positive impact on Nick. And Cooper said, I'm going to give a lot more high fives.
• 24:34
  Speaker A: Exactly. And that's also too like the smallest of things that might seem trivial or not impactful from a, from a community like this or what you're doing ends up reminding you that people just really want to feel seen and heard. And children that you might think aren't aware of small acts actually really deeply are. In fact, I always challenge the belief that kids in the spectrum, they say, you know, oh gosh, they seem so. They lack such deep emotions. I actually think it's the complete opposite. I think they feel they actually take in so much that they're more aware of the smallest and littlest and tiniest of emotional connections that mean more than you could ever realize. They just, it almost is perceived by all of us that they don't have the capacity for it, but it's actually the. That they actually are able to understand everything they see everything, they understand every emotion behind it, that when they receive it, it's like world changing for them on a, on a day to day basis.
• 25:36
  Speaker B: Great.
• 25:37
  Speaker A: I have, you know, again, my, my daughter's typical, typical team. You know, knowing that Millie and Mac have attended, you know, from their CYO days until now, you know, six years of it, even just their presence in the bleachers watching them. I've already seen this in these like seventh grade girls going, well, are Millie and Matt going to be there? So even their presence allows for them to understand that different people are taking in their skills. And I think that that's really another part of this is like orienting beyond just your team and how like what you're saying, the families that are there even just watching and maybe taking a break are the moms that are able to socialize a bit. That's part of it. That's part of what you're baking into all of this. And it has a compounding nature over time.
• 26:25
  Speaker B: No, I totally agree. We did a fundraiser in 2019, the week before Thanksgiving. We did it at Shakamaxin. And someone asked me, someone suggested it. I'm like, yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do it. And we first booked, like, the bar area, Chakamaxen. And then before I knew it, I had to book the ballroom. Yeah, we had over 200 people. You know, we raised over $20,000. Had over 200 people. And, you know, some people were saying, should we, you know, can we bring the kids? I'm like, yes. Like this. Yes. The kids were selling basketballs that had Wolves basketball on them for a fundraiser, and they were walking around selling the basketballs.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: Right.
• 27:10
  Speaker B: You know, we had a live band and it was like, it was a night out for everyone just to be together. And I want to do it again, not so much for the fundraising. Like, so my board, we. We talk about what do we. What are we going to do with the money that we have? Because we raised all the money we raised in 2019. We still have.
• 27:29
  Speaker A: That's awesome.
• 27:30
  Speaker B: Because the program kind of runs itself. Right. So Regina and Cindy once told me I was going to not charge for my program. And they said, you have to charge. And they said, because if you charge, they. They come. Because it's, you know, you. You know, a parent wakes up on a Saturday morning and their child doesn't want to get out of the house. It's so much easier just to, like, not get out of the house. But if you pay the $25, even though it's not a lot of money, they say, oh, we. We paid. We. We scheduled this psychological incentive for something.
• 28:03
  Speaker A: That has no, like, I. You think about things in life. What has no downside. Attending Wolves basketball clinic.
• 28:10
  Speaker B: That's true.
• 28:10
  Speaker A: But there's. But that's. But that's. That's sort of why the. The money, like the small fee and the psychological sort of science behind it is, yeah, there's no downside to this.
• 28:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. And if there's anyone that can afford it, because I do understand, there are people that are. I call a scholarship and, you know, I. Medication therapies, everything just adds up. So, yeah, $25, you top that, you put that on top, and it makes it tough. So I always say, like, don't worry, don't worry.
• 28:41
  Speaker A: But that also comes from a place of knowing that there's going to be support if you need it. And just to. And just to ask, one of the things I think we need to do better as a. As parents of children with special needs, is to remember that the support is out there. But you do have to ask, because we're not. Like you said, you have the ability to have scholarships available, but we need to know where the people are. And you have to sort of be a little bit more vulnerable and saying, yeah, I do need a little help with that. And it's not to be shamed for that.
• 29:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. But I would like one day just to pick your brain on ideas, what we can do with. With the money that we've raised. You know, I do a scholarship every year for the volunteer of the year, you know, so I pay a one year, you know, a little bit of money for that, like pay for their books or whatever it might be. But I'm looking for how we can. What we can do that's really positive with the money and what makes the most sense.
• 29:32
  Speaker A: Right. Well, you are off to a. What I consider, you know, a multi generational wave of impacting your community. And obviously it's touching.
• 29:42
  Speaker B: It's.
• 29:43
  Speaker A: It's growing beyond that. You know, as someone who's not from. Originally from New Jersey, I love New Jersey now. I never thought in a million years I'd be raising my children. I'm a Pennsylvania girl at heart. I did not think that my children would. Jersey kids. Yet here we are. And I'm so. I'm so, so proud of the communities that I have become, you know, supporting characters in my life. I mean, these are the towns around me and they are, you know, you, amongst others, are doing so many wonderful things to just broaden our idea of what community spirit, community inclusion and just. Just like the warmth of. From a. From a deeply human perspective, what that gives and how that just grows exponentially. Jeff, I cannot thank you enough for you just being who you are and choosing to go down this path and saying yes to all these opportunities that led to where you are now with Wolves Basketball Academy. I think that one of the things I say to my kids every night and I say to every guest is that you should be proud of yourself too, because it took who you are to even get to the point that you are sitting right now at some basic level. Who you were was part of why this has all come to be.
• 30:54
  Speaker B: Thank you. No, it's. It's part of me. I mean, I. I bring it up in business conversations. Somehow I slip it in.
• 31:03
  Speaker A: I just slip in all roads back to Wolves, Basketball.
• 31:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Just because, one, a lot of people either have someone on, you know, that that has special needs or they know someone that has special needs. Two is. It kind of just shows also who I am, but I also just love talking about it, you know, I just, I do. It's part of who I am, so it just always comes up. It's better than talking about business.
• 31:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, there's a lot of. Again, like, like you were saying, I wonder what will happen, like, when you started this. Like, like, are people gonna actually join me in this? Or are there gonna be. Is it. Is it gonna grow how you. How your heart desired? Because we have this fear of what maybe the world's reaction is to children with profound needs. And when I travel, I always travel with $5 Starbucks gift cards, like on an airplane with the kids going to hand out to those around, like, listen, my son might kick your seat for, you know, here and there. And I'm going to have a hard time managing both he and his sister if he does. Here's a latte on me. And if he doesn't, you've got a free Starbucks latte. Right. But what happens from that experience and what you're saying about through your work is that you share that 95% of the time when I hand out those Starbucks gift cards on a travel trip or a flight, people say, oh, my gosh, that's. Thank you for letting me know. I also have a nephew, classmate, you know, and it just spirals into this wonderful conversation of how they were impacted by a human with special needs or a disability. And it never fails. Now, there have been, and I write about this, like, these 5% of people that you realize, oh, my gosh, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Please tell me how my life is deeply affecting yours on this travel trip. But that's also just a reminder that 95% of this world is deeply embedded in the good, without a doubt.
• 32:54
  Speaker B: You know, and if it's funny that you talked about traveling on a plane before wolves, you know, I was 50, 50 with the screaming kid on the plane. But now, now I'm more. More concerned and have more empathy for their parent because I know how they feel.
• 33:14
  Speaker A: Right. You know, and so that discomfort that the parent must feel, you know, is oftentimes greater than what that screaming child is just acting.
• 33:24
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 33:25
  Speaker A: What their skills are. And when you're an infant, it's one thing, but if you have a disability, it's a whole another.
• 33:30
  Speaker B: And I, I, a couple Years ago I had a guy next to me who was not being nice to someone who had a child. And I said, well, there's your lesson. You gotta travel with noise canceling headphones. Like that's what you have to do.
• 33:42
  Speaker A: Like the cool part is that you can control that.
• 33:45
  Speaker B: Exactly. I was like, I was like, my God. I was like, no. I said, just imagine what the mother's feeling like right now.
• 33:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I had a gentleman, my son Mac has a very loud laugh and on an airplane travel and he gets to watch, you know, his show of Daniel Tiger on repeat. He doesn't realize how loud he's laughing and he is cracking up. I mean he is, it is a, you know, you know, 7:00am Flight to see family in the Midwest. And I mean he is laughing his tail off. And someone said like, you know, the constant turning around, gave the Starbucks gift card, explained everything. And he said, but why can't he have headphones on? And I said, why can't you?
• 34:27
  Speaker B: That's a great response.
• 34:28
  Speaker A: And I said, I don't mean to say that, but you see how difficult this is for one human to manage. You are by yourself, your wife is dripping in Gucci. I'm pretty sure you can afford a set of noise canceling headphones. And he was so taken aback by that. Now again I was ready for sort of that dialogue to go back and forth. But I thought to myself, if the laughter of a child with special needs is so disruptive to your world, that's not on me.
• 34:55
  Speaker B: No, not at all.
• 34:56
  Speaker A: I'm off the plane. I'm not going to think about this until I share with in conversation or whatever. But I'm not going to have that. That's not going to be a part of my day to day realization that that's on, that's on them. And it does, it really does. When you are around children more and more that realize the behaviors and the struggles of the whole family. It just, to use my partner's favorite word, it's just a broadening of your orientation and you just say you're so much deeper, have a much more deeper acceptance to what anyone else is going through.
• 35:28
  Speaker B: Agree 100%.
• 35:28
  Speaker A: You're doing more than basketball, Jeff. I know that you know that. But it's nice to share with the listeners that this is much more than just a basketball league for kiddos on the spectrum or with special needs. This is a movement towards understanding and to what can be created whenever we really see other people for the depth of their humanity. So thank you for what you're doing. I always ask what would be one small current inch stone win that you have experienced through your basketball league?
• 35:57
  Speaker B: A win.
• 35:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. What is like, maybe that. That doesn't seem huge to anyone else, but is really for you.
• 36:04
  Speaker B: One of the boys that volunteers now who was a participant and was really good in the league is. He lost his father before in the summer. And. And just seeing him come and always giving me like a bro hug and. And how he's got a. Built a really good relationship with one of my other volunteer coaches. And he texts me and texts him, can you meet me at the gym or at the Kramer park to go shoot hoops? And. And the other coach has been going and joining him and helping. And that's a win. That's a win. Because without wolves, like, he might feel like he doesn't have anyone to reach out to.
• 36:40
  Speaker A: That's right. That's right. And to know that those are, again, no one else besides you and your fellow coach probably knows that those happen. But that is the real human connection behind all of this. And again, you're creating something larger than life. One inch zone, one little, one clinic at a time. Jeff, thank you for being here today.
• 37:00
  Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: Of course we'll be able to put all of your details on how locally people can get involved. But I think just also as an inspiration point, if anyone that's listening in different parts of the country has a even iota of a desire to do more and build something really special, Jeff is a wonderful example of how that can happen.
• 37:19
  Speaker B: I can actually send anyone a playbook of how to do this.
• 37:23
  Speaker A: There we go.
• 37:24
  Speaker B: It's not that hard. You just find the space.
• 37:26
  Speaker A: The memoir might be one thing. Part two's the playbook, you know. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, Jeff, thank you again for your time and we will be sure to put all that information in the episode summary. So until next time on the Inchtones podcast.
• 37:41
  Speaker B: Thanks, Sarah.