2013 NCAA Convention

Serving Student-Athletes with Disabilities: Present and Future

Like all student-athletes, student-athletes with disabilities have unique individualized support needs to ensure they are successful academically, socially and athletically on their respective campuses. This session will enlighten the audience as to the unique challenges that student-athletes with physical and education-impacting disabilities face, along with solutions for enhancing the support provided to them. Additionally, the session will explore the future evolution of athletics opportunities that are inclusive of student-athletes with physical disabilities.

Moderator: Eli A. Wolff, Program Director of the Sport and Development Project, Brown University

Eli Wolff is the program director of the Sport and Development Project at Brown University, which aims to advance the growing field of sport and social change.  The project works with academic and community partners to better understand how sport can be used to improve the human condition on a local and global scale.

Wolff is an Engaged Scholar with Brown University’s Engaged Scholars Initiative.  He also serves as the director of the Inclusive Sports Initiative for the Institute for Human-Centered Design, bringing people with disabilities from the margins to become integral members of the sporting community.  Ongoing research, education and advocacy address the inclusion of people with disabilities in sport.

From 2001 to 2010, Wolff was the manager of research and advocacy at the Center for Sport in Society at Northeastern University.  From 2004 to 2006, Wolff led a global effort to include provisions addressing sport and recreation within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  The recipient of the inaugural Nike Casey Martin Award honoring people with disabilities who have made a difference in sports, Wolff also received Heroes Among Us recognition from the Boston Celtics.  Wolff was a member of the U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympic Games.

Wolff is a graduate of Brown University, where he was a student-athlete.

Speakers:

Sarah Castle, Attorney and Paralympic Athlete

Sarah Castle is a four-time Paralympian, and a recently licensed attorney.  While training for the London Paralympic Games, she attended law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  This past summer, just before departing for the Games, she was also studying for the Missouri bar exam.

As captain of the current U.S. Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team, Castle participated in her fourth Paralympic Games.   Castle previously competed in the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Paralympic Games as a swimmer, capturing a silver medal in the 100-meter breaststroke in Sydney; she was just 16 at the time.  Castle also set and reset the world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

In 2002, Castle began college at the University of Illinois, Champaign.  While there, she was a member of the women’s wheelchair basketball team and won five national championships, in addition to earning her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in political science and civic leadership.  In 2005, Castle joined the U.S. Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team.  She earned a silver medal at the 2006 World Championships, and won gold at the 2007 and 2011 ParaPan American Games, the 2010 World Championships, and the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games.  The U.S. women’s team finished fourth in London.

Castle now has her sights set on a position at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and possibly for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Marcia Ridpath, President, MAR Educational Consulting

Marcia Ridpath is the president and founder of MAR Educational Consulting.  For the past 13 years, she has served as a disability consultant to the NCAA.

Before starting her consultant role for the NCAA in 1999, she served as a learning specialist for Oregon State University athletics.  Ridpath has 25 years’ experience in the field of education, working as a junior/senior high school principal, academic advisor, special education teacher, adjunct processor and accreditation coordinator.  She is a national speaker, published author and member of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) and the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletes.

In the past year, she celebrated her 27th wedding anniversary and welcomed a new daughter-in-law into her family.  Ridpath loves to read, walk, write and spend time with her three fantastic children, an amazing husband and two slobbery dogs.

Tony Tatum, Student-Athlete, Gallaudet University

Tony Tatum is a two-sport athlete at Gallaudet, the world’s only university with programs and services specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students.  Tatum is a four-year letter winner in men’s basketball and a three-year letter winner in football.

In his junior season for the men’s basketball team, Tatum was named to the all-North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) third team.  As a sophomore, in his first season ever playing football, he won the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) Rookie of the Year award and made the all-ECFC second team.  As a junior, he was named to the ECFC defensive first team in addition to being named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III North all-star second team. During his senior season, he was named ECFC Defensive Player of the Year and ECFC Special Teams Player of the Year and was an all-conference first-team selection.

Tatum graduated in December 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in recreation and sports programming.

John Wood, Assistant Professor, Landmark College

John Wood has worked in higher education for the last 25 years as a residence hall director and he has coached a variety of sports at Landmark College during the past 20 years.  He has served as the head men’s basketball and baseball coach for the past decade, as well as an assistant professor in the physical education department.

Landmark is the only accredited college in the nation during his tenure whose mission is to educate high-functioning learning-disabled individuals.  Wood’s work with learning-disabled student-athletes has been documented in articles published in Coach and Athletic Director magazine and online. He has worked with students with a variety of learning disabilities during the years and has had great success with them both on and off the court.

Wood stepped down as the basketball coach at Landmark this fall, having won two-thirds of the games he coached.  His wife, Ellen, has coached women’s sports at Landmark for more than 15 years.

Wood has lived in Vermont nearly his entire life and has two bachelor’s degrees, in history and English, from Lyndon
State College.