National Ability Center – Seeing What Matters
National Ability Center – Seeing What Matters
By: Ryan Jensen and Seamus McMahon
Photo courtesy Ryan Jensen
The snowstorm of the year just hit and you’re headed to the mountain to plow through the powder. You’re carving your way down a snow-covered slope, sun on your face, enjoying a sense of freedom and an amazing view. Now, close your eyes. No, really – close your eyes. Now ski with them closed all the way to the bottom of the hill.
Impossible? No.
Former NAC board president and Danelle’s first racing guide, Sally Tauber, alongside Danelle at the NAC’s annual Huntsman Cup ski races at Park City Mountain Resort
Danelle Umstead has skied with the National Ability Center in Park City, Utah, for the last five years. Danelle skis with the U.S. Ski Team and won two bronze medals in Vancouver in 2010. Danelle has Retinitis Pigmentosa. She can’t see.
Danelle isn’t alone. The dream of hitting the slopes, the trails, the road or the pool doesn’t disappear because someone has a disability. The NAC has helped those dreams come true for thousands over the last 25 years. The NAC works with returning soldiers struggling with physical and psychological trauma, young autistic children, and individuals who have lost limbs. In fact, last year the NAC helped more than 2,000 people and is known worldwide as an innovator and leader in the field of adaptive recreation.
The NAC was founded by Meeche White and Pete Badewitz in 1985 on a shoestring budget. That winter they gave 45 ski lessons to a mixture of athletes with prosthetics and visual challenges. They had to figure out from scratch how to adapt traditional teaching tools for these differently-abled, but very motivated, men and women.
National Ability Center’s 26-acre Bronfman Family Recreation Center & Ranch in Park City where programs like archery, indoor rock climbing, horseback riding, hippotherapy, summer camps and cycling take place
Ten years later, an anonymous saint donated 26 acres of ranch land on the outskirts of town, and the NAC’s horseback riding and other summer activities grew quickly. From the beginning, the core belief of the NAC was that growth and healing should take part with the full involvement of participants’ families. This conviction stood in contrast to many programs for people with disabilities and different needs, where an institutional approach effectively isolated the participants from their best support group.
In addition to the outdoor and indoor horseback riding arenas that were built on the new property, a 25-room lodge was added so that families could stay together at the ranch for their vacations. In many cases, this was the only place where the families could feel completely at ease. They were surrounded by people who completely got it. Yes, there are challenges, but also great joy in growing through – and beyond – a disability.
Danelle with her husband/guide Rob Umstead showing off their bronze medals from the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver with NAC Assistant Ski & Snowboard Program Manager Tracy Meier
Danelle’s sight may be gone, but her vision is better now than it ever has been. Winning two medals wasn’t the end of her journey. She and her husband Rob (who is her guide on the race course) are working hard to earn gold medals in Sochi in 2014. And now blindness isn’t the only thing trying to keep Danelle from the podium. In January, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
“No matter what, not ski racing is not an option,” Danelle said shortly after her latest diagnosis. “It is my life.”
Continuing to ski race means that Danelle follows her husband down ski hills all over the world, without being able to see and without any feeling in her legs and torso.
“Fighting blindness will look easy next to fighting Multiple Sclerosis,” she said. “I will continue to race and prove to myself and others that anything is possible.”
Blindness and MS are just two of more than 100 disabilities that don’t keep people from participating in the activities they enjoy at the NAC.
In the last few years, the NAC has also greatly expanded its work with kids on the autism spectrum (more kids cope with autism than suffer from cancer). There are now climbing walls, a ropes course and even indoor horseback riding for winter visitors. You can try your hand at cycling, snowboarding, water skiing, sled hockey and swimming. If you can think of it, the NAC can probably find a way to help you go for it. Since no two participants are alike in their world, the team at the NAC has become expert at customizing equipment and programs to meet the needs of their visitors.
The NAC is determined to keep participant fees low, so its services are realistically affordable. Almost 80% of their costs are covered by individual charitable donations.
Soldiers with the Community Based Warior Transition Unit- Utah (based at Camp Williams) visited the NAC this winter as part of their reintegration into their communities & families upon returning from military service in Iraq and Afghanistan
Aside from kids with autism, one of the fastest-growing groups of NAC participants consists of service men and women returning with physical and psychological injuries. The NAC’s Adventure Learning Program works in partnership with the U.S. Military’s Community Based Warrior Transition Units. By the end of this summer, more than 500 soldiers and their families will have been helped to regain physical and social equilibrium and to connect with others dealing with the same traumas.
The NAC has established such a strong national and international reputation that they have advised centers in Spain, Thailand, Poland, Italy and Korea. The winter sports program, in collaboration with U.S. Paralympics, has helped develop world-class competitors (see sidebar).
“One in five Americans deals with a disability of some sort,” said Gail Loveland, executive director of the NAC. “We want to continue to offer a world class, caring resource for them and their families. We also think it’s important to help develop world class athletes that kids with disabilities can look up to, much as most kids revere Lebron James or Peyton Manning.”
Looking up to someone takes on new meaning when the athlete you admire can’t, in fact, ‘look’ at anything. While Danelle can’t see the gold, silver or bronze of her medals, she has learned what it takes to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to be the best and inspire those around her.
How to get involved
For more information about the National Ability Center’s programs for people with disabilities, visit the website at DiscoverNAC.org or find it on Facebook at Facebook.com/NationalAbilityCenter.
Category: Current Articles, Featured, Mind, Body & Spirit
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