♪♪
-We do a lot of lifting.
-The boys in the boat has the attention for now,
but the UW women’s rowers
also have a spectacular story to tell.
His worsening cerebral palsy prevented
this experienced paraglider from taking flight until now.
These stories and more next on "CityStream."
♪♪
Hi, I’m Enrique Cerna.
Welcome to CityStream from the Arc of King County.
March is Developmental Disability Awareness Month.
That’s why we’re here at the Arc, an organization
that provides information, support and advocates for those
with intellectual and developmental challenges.
The Arc's vision is a world where kids and adults
with disabilities can thrive as equal
and valued members of the community.
Much more just ahead.
Decades before the Boys in the Boat
won the 1936 Olympics,
women rowers at the University of Washington
were writing their own story
about the fight for the right to row.
Those early trailblazers and the gutsy women of the late '60s
and '70s cleared the way for today’s rowers
to compete at the highest level.
This proves that sometimes you do have to rock the boat.
Producers Kathy Tuohey and Valerie Vozza explain.
-It’s early morning at the University of Washington.
The sun has just cracked the horizon.
The lake is calm and still.
♪♪
But the Conibear Shellhouse is buzzing.
♪♪
-Two way radio.
-Water is beautiful. Coxswains,
we’re going to go to the Space Needle.
Go straight through the cut.
-And for the Husky women’s crew, it’s time to get to work.
-I said just go nice and slow.
♪♪
-The Shells cut through the lake with ease,
but it takes hard work to make it look so effortless.
-Separate and flow. Yes, nice.
-Guiding the team through today’s workout
is head coach Yasmin Farooq, or Yaz, as she’s called.
-The course connecting your hand to the blade.
-She’s laser focused, analyzing every stroke
as they progress through the practice.
-This is my eighth year at Washington.
I was at Stanford for 10 years before that,
and I was on the U.S. team for eight years.
-She was also a two-time Olympian.
♪♪
-Rowing is a power endurance sport.
Keep your body level, body level.
So we have to train a lot of systems
and that’s why we literally train all year round.
So there’s certainly the aerobic capacity is important,
and you train that by doing a lot
of what we call steady state or low intensity miles.
Then there’s also a power, which you need to get off the line
and to be able to sprint. -Hey!
-So we do a lot of lifting.
We lift two to three times a week
depending on the time of year.
-And then there are the intangibles.
-It’s the people, and it is what they are willing
to do for one another.
The character that they have, like,
that transcends everything else.
That’s the most important.
-The unwavering determination of today’s teams
can be traced back to the early pioneers of the sport.
-The history of the University of Washington
women’s program is exceptional.
It’s always been defined by these women
that were breaking barriers,
you know, that were carving new paths.
And that’s what they were doing. They were coming down to row.
-The first documented report of women’s rowing at Washington
was in 1903, but it didn’t really take off
until Hiram Conibear was hired as the coach in 1906.
-Hiram Conibear is the classic founder.
He’s our founder.
Even though we had started rowing before he arrived,
he is the founder of Washington rowing.
-Conibear was a huge advocate for women’s rowing,
and wanted women to train just as vigorously as the men
and to compete.
College administrators, however, disagreed.
They thought a beauty contest with matching outfits
and graceful sculling was more ladylike.
-And Hiram Conibear, each time, pushed back
at the University of Washington.
He would not be stopped. He just would not be stopped.
-Conditions for the women were dreadful.
Their boat shed was cold, leaky and had no bathroom.
They had to trudge through muddy trails at 6 A.M.
to get to the men’s boathouse to borrow their boats.
And they were forbidden to race, but secretly...
-They’d go around the corner and go full -- full power.
For sure.
-Over the next decade, three influential women
coaches continued Conibear’s work,
growing the program into the most popular athletic activity
for women on campus.
Then, in 1917, the program abruptly ended.
-It was Hiram Conibear dying.
So right there they lost their number one advocate.
It was World War I starting, so suddenly
campus was radically changed.
The boathouse was closed.
-And women’s rowing disappeared for five decades.
It wasn’t until 1968 that rowing returned to campus
as a club sport,
and again they put up with inadequate funding,
hand-me-down equipment
and harassment from the male rowers.
-The '70s were marked by this transition
that was created by Title IX,
and so they went from being a club sport to a varsity sport.
-Conditions improved, but not without strong
advocates like athletic administrator Kit Green.
Under her guidance, women’s sports flourished
and the rowing program took off.
-Because in 1980, Bob Ernst gets hired as the head coach
and the women became incredibly competitive.
And they won the national championship 1981 and of course,
then won the national championship in '82
and in '83 and in '84 and in '85.
So five national championships in a row.
It’s never been done since.
-Another gifted coach followed Ernst, Jan Harville,
former Washington rower and women’s assistant coach,
took over as head coach in 1987.
She led the Huskies to 11 Pac ten championships,
three NCAA championships, and was coach of the year
nine times before retiring in 2003.
For the next 13 years,
the Husky women continued to perform at the highest level,
adding more accolades to the team’s storied history.
-All of those chapters of this history
are why we have what we have today.
We wouldn’t be who we are if it wasn’t for those women.
And everybody on this team knows that and they appreciate it.
- When Yaz came on board in 2016,
she inherited a team that was highly motivated,
so motivated that in 2017,
they became the first school in NCAA history
to sweep all three final races and claim the NCAA title.
Then, in 2019, the team was poised to sweep their way
to the NCAA title again, and nothing sums up the tenacity
and grit of the husky women present and past,
like the epic varsity eight comeback race
from last to first.
-Washington now is in sixth.
We're coming into the last 500, and guess what?
We got speed.
-Here comes Washington now,
moving through Cal.
Margins are getting tight.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
♪♪
-We got it! We got it!
[ Cheering ]
The final time of 607.2.
University of Washington.
-And for everybody back home...
[ Cheering ]
...we are national champions!
[ Cheering ]
♪♪
-It’s easy to see why Seattle has a love affair with rowing.
If you want to get in on the action.
The spring season starts March 16th with the Class Day Regatta.
Races start at 10 A.M. on the Montlake Cut.
From slicing through water to flying like a bird,
few pursuits can match the thrill of paragliding,
especially if a disability once held you back.
That story is next on "CityStream."
♪♪
Issaquah's Tiger mountain is home to a business
with a flair for adventure.
For decades, Seattle paragliding has taught
people of all ages and abilities how to fly.
The list includes Michael Miller,
one of the only people with cerebral palsy
who has chalked up more than 500 flights,
but Michael’s worsening disability
has prevented him from paragliding the past 10 years.
Recently, all that changed.
Producer Pete Cassam explains.
♪♪
-The wind can throw all kinds of curveballs at you,
and you need to be versed
in how you’re going to make it happen.
♪♪
Once into the air on a sweet day
when the air is smooth and lifting,
you’re a bird, you’re an eagle. you’re -- you’re flying aloft,
able to climb up to the clouds if the winds are right.
Unlike any other kind of flying,
you’re not in a cockpit, it’s quiet, there’s no motor.
♪♪
Tiger with its Poo Poo Point
is the queen jewel of Western Washington for paragliding.
From this starting point, gliders are able to climb.
They’ve flown as far as 100 miles to the south
and to the Canadian border to the north.
If you aren’t able to get up and fly these distances,
at all lands right down here at the same landing field.
This is a national destination now, Tiger Mountain,
and we’re right at the base of Tiger.
♪♪
We have flown all types of people.
-And conditions? the sky looks beautiful.
It’s a little bit windy from the northeast,
so it can be a little hard to launch.
A little turbulent, but --
but it looks okay, it looks nice.
-We fly upwards of 2,500 people a year.
-Whoo!
[ Laughs ]
First nervous on launch... -Run downhill, run downhill.
-...and then they get out into space.
And very common that three to four seconds after launching
they can go from wide-eyed fear of the unknown to...
-Hi! Mommy!
-...a big, smiling... -It’s really cool.
-...realization that their fear of heights isn’t there.
And they range from five-year-old tots...
-Hi. -Ooh, this is unreal.
-...to 94-year-old seniors to disabled.
♪♪
-Have you flown in the trike before?
No? It’s your first time, isn’t it?
-Have you flown the kite? Have you flown it before?
-Yeah, quite a few times.
You're not my first victim, Michael.
You're not my first victim.
-Project Airtime,
the founder and conceptor is Chris Santacroce.
He came up with the gift
of flying disabled people with this.
People that don’t have the use of their legs.
Even quadriplegics can be launched.
-This is what we’ll be flying Michael with today.
This is Super Fly/project, Project Airtime's
contraption invention even.
And basically it allows us to take someone who is less able
but still enthusiastic
to go tandem with a -- with an instructor.
[ Cheering ]
The conditions today.
It’s southwest wind right now, but we’re hoping
for a little bit more of a northerly influence.
-Here we go, guys.
Load it up.
I’m Michael Miller. I live in Issaquah.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Michael’s disabled with cerebral palsy
and no longer is able to fly himself,
and they’re going to launch off in this Project Airtime
special trike cart.
♪♪
-It’s from the west. It’s coming across.
If it’s coming from the side, it can kind of create a turn
or the wing might not inflate symmetrically.
You have to kind of weigh the risks.
If you try and send it on a bad day,
you might end up in the trees.
-Just gonna wait for our moment.
We can pick our cycles when the wind is coming
in the right direction.
And that’s when we launch.
-It’s gonna be a good time.
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
-You’re gonna go a little bit harder.
-There we go.
-Whoo!
♪♪
-That panoramic view of everything 3D from space
above and down below and right and left,
it’s a view that a person normally doesn’t have.
It’s a feeling of elation, not fear.
It really surprises me yet today
how many people land and say,
that was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life?
♪♪
-Whoo-hoo!
-There we go. Lovely.
-[ Laughs ]
-Seattle Paragliding continues to offer tandem flights
to anyone interested.
As you just saw, there are increasing opportunities
for people with developmental challenges.
The Arc of King County promotes and protects the rights of those
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
And with us now is Robin Tatsuda,
the executive director of the organization.
And, Robin, so tell me about the advocacy work
and the programs that you offer.
-Oh, absolutely.
So the Arc of King County is basically the go to resource
for all things developmental disability
across the whole life span of a person with a disabilities life,
from prenatal diagnosis to sort of end-of-life type issues.
We help individuals and families navigate resources,
connect with services, connect with each other,
and advocate both individually within systems,
but also with bigger picture like legislative topics
to ensure that the world
is inclusive of people with disabilities.
-So, you have about 36,000 residents in King County
that you serve. And what are the greatest needs?
Is it housing? Is it health care, jobs?
-I mean, that’s a tough question
because there’s needs everywhere.
But I would say for us,
the thing that we’re most challenged by
is lack of affordable, accessible housing.
That is by far kind of the biggest barrier
that we’re seeing for families with children
as well as adults with developmental disabilities.
But I think it’s important to know that any issue
that a non-disabled person would experience,
a person with disability would also experience
and usually with greater barriers.
So whether it be accessing health care
or employment or education
or whatever, uh, people with disabilities
are going to typically have more barriers and challenges
than a person without.
-March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
What do you want folks to be aware of?
-Yeah, I mean, to me,
the biggest thing ultimately is that people with disabilities
deserve the right to be welcomed,
included, valued members of their communities,
just like any non-disabled person.
And really, it takes everyone to accomplish that.
The Arc can’t do it alone.
And really, if we truly accomplish our mission,
the Arc wouldn’t even be necessary anymore.
So what I hope is that people, everybody think
how could I make a difference.
It’s not just about awareness,
it’s truly about acceptance and inclusion.
Is there a kid in my kid’s classroom
that I should be inviting over for playdates and birthdays?
Is there a neighbor down the street
who might like to have a friend?
Is there someone who could benefit from me
just being more involved?
That kind of thing is going to truly
accomplish that awareness sort of goal.
-So many programs that you offer,
but is there are one in particular that’s happening
or going to happen that you really are excited about?
-I’m so glad you asked,
because we are literally launching
sort of the biggest program in the Arc’s history.
And I say that with a lot of emphasis
because we’ve been around for nearly 90 years.
But as I mentioned, housing,
affordable housing is one of the greatest barriers,
and the Arc has actually taken steps
to become part of the solution.
We are partnering with an affordable housing developer
to build an affordable housing apartment complex
where the Arc’s office will be on the ground floor,
and we will serve the 36,000 members of our community
with developmental disabilities.
That apartment building will have 20% of the units
designed for and set aside
for people with developmental disabilities,
and the Arc will provide supports to them
while delivering all of our programs.
So that’s by far the most exciting.
-Sounds like a great program
and great opportunity for the community
and particularly the community you serve.
If you have more questions about the Arc,
want to know more about its programs
and the people that serve, just go to their website
arcofkingcounty.org.
And Robin Tatsuda, thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Next on "CityStream,"
flying is nerve wracking for many people.
For autistic kids it can be too much,
but one program is helping them adapt.
♪♪
-Welcome back to "CityStream" from the Arc of King County.
This organization, along with Alaska Airlines
and the Port of Seattle, support an incredible program
known as Wings for Autism.
If you’re the parent of an autistic child,
the chaos and commotion at the airport can be overwhelming,
but this program helps families find their wings.
Producer Randy Eng has more.
-Today we’ll open up the whole world for us.
I don’t know. This is an amazing place, right?
-Welcome to Seattle Tacoma International.
Welcome. They said welcome.
I’m Stacey Auger.
I’m traveling with my grandson, Ayden,
who’s 11, and my grandson, Gabriel, who’s 10.
This is their very first time, to the airport.
Air travel today is stressful for everybody.
But as parents of special needs children,
you have that layered on top of it.
-Today is a really exciting day.
The Arc of King County, in partnership
with the Port of Seattle, Alaska Airlines and TSA,
is hosting our Wings for Autism program.
Wings for Autism is an airport dress rehearsal for families
where they get to experience everything that they would
if they were actually traveling today.
Imagine, in this day and age,
not being able to fly to visit loved ones.
-Travel has been by car
because that’s a safe way for us to travel.
It means we travel locally.
It means we travel to areas where we know
we can get our needs met in terms of food,
shelter, sensory issues, that sort of thing.
-And of course, some places you want to go
you can’t drive to.
-It looks like they’re checking people in.
You want to head over? Are you ready for that part?
Okay, here we go.
-Airports are very challenging environments
for someone who has autism.
The unpredictability of the whole airport experience
to the changes in routine,
waiting in very long lines, transitions
from one step in the process to the next.
Couple that with sensory integration challenges,
which could be noise sensitivities
or tactile sensitivity.
For a traveler with autism,
everything is on blast at the airport
and it can be completely overwhelming.
-Problem solving and working through that, I think,
serves a greater long term goal for them,
in giving them the skills to be able to navigate on their own.
Hey, we’re next.
Just so you know how important this paper is,
you don’t move through security or get on a plane without it.
And you know what? I think I’d like you to be
responsible for your own. -So nervous.
-Going through security,
it’s just a nightmare for somebody on the spectrum.
I mean, you’re asked to take off shoes and coats.
A lot of people may travel with a favorite
stuffed animal or something, and they’ve got to give it up.
They’ve got to get up their headphones.
And that is very, very anxiety producing.
-You don’t have anything in your pockets, do you?
-Nope. -Good job, guys.
-The oldest is a little bit stressed out right now.
He’s the one that has the most sensory issues.
And although it might not be apparent to other people,
I can see the symptoms in him.
We’re going to have some deep breaths.
We’re going to think positive thoughts,
and we’re going to just keep moving forward.
-If you are sitting in row number
25 to 34, you’re welcome to board.
[ Machine beeps ] -You’ve got the first one.
-Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 9820
with service to Seattle.
-Wow. It's the airplane.
-Hey, guys. -Hi.
-Welcome aboard. My name is Elya Baches.
I’m captain here. at the Alaska Airlines.
-I feel it's important because my daughter
is on the autism spectrum.
-24, row 24, row 24.
-The fact that Alaska Airlines
is integral with this,
I’m very proud to be able to help them with this issue.
This is very important to me personally.
I know it’s very important to them.
-They got to sit In the cockpit,
they got to check out the galley.
-You press for a flight attendant.
-And we got to take care of all the questions
about the buttons
and the blowers and how the seat trays works,
so we don’t have to work through that next time.
That’s all out of the way for today.
-That was creepy.
-We do have everyone on the plane at this time,
so we are going to get ready to push back here.
-So the last part of the trip,
the pilot will take the plane up to 100 miles an hour
and simulate takeoff and landing.
It’s about as real as you can get.
-But this is okay, right?
-You should now be seated for takeoff.
♪♪
-Gab. -This is what it feels like.
[ Airplane rumbling ]
♪♪
-Are you good with this? -It's the best day of my life.
-The best day of your life? -Best moment.
-We could not do this program
without the participation of our partners.
-Alaska Airlines has been an incredible partner in
donating a plane.
The Port Authority donates the runway.
TSA spends time training their teams.
-Oh, my God, it was just crazy.
It was really crazy.
-I feel really prepared to do this for real.
Where are we going? Paris?
-I’m thinking about, like, somewhere close to begin.
-Like Legoland, because we’re not ready for Disneyland yet.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-It's inclusion in society, it's inclusion in,
you know, life.
It’s -- it gives individuals
with autism the impetus to travel in the future.
Thank you so much. -You're good?
Best day ever.
I mean, it’s just life changing.
-Yes, thank you so much.
Guys, they were on an airplane.
-It was the best day ever. -Best day ever.
♪♪
-Wings for Autism was put on hold during the pandemic,
but all the groups involved in the program are exploring
how and when to restart it.
We’ll be right back.
♪♪
That wraps up this edition of "CityStream"
from the Arc of King County.
If you’d like to see more outstanding
Seattle Channel programs, go to our website
seattlechannel.org and search for future shows.
I’m Enrique Cerna, thanks for watching.
♪♪