Jason Keatseangsilp grew up playing tennis in the sweltering heat of Arizona. He enjoyed the game so much that he was looking to play it collegiately. Unfortunately, in his senior year of high school (2011) he suffered a spinal cord injury following a fall.

The T11-12 complete paraplegic picked up the pieces however, along with his tennis racquet again. After graduating from the University of Arizona with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, Jason joined the professional wheelchair tennis circuit! He is currently the #3 American men's player who just competed in the 2022 US Open.

Jason was kind enough to carve some time out of his busy schedule to join me on the latest edition of The QuadCast.

Kevin Hoagland suffered a spinal cord injury in 1978, one year after graduating from St. Peter's High School. However, the C 4/5 quadriplegic has not it hold him back one bit. Kevin credits his family for instilling in him the compulsion to help others, and he's been doing just that in many different ways for years.

As the Chairman of New Brunswick, NJ's Mayor's Committee for a Barrier Free town since 1988, he has been instrumental in making his hometown more accessible. Kevin was elected 6 times a Middlesex County Surrogate, and is the very proud founder and president of the Central Jersey Spinal Cord Association (1985 - present). If that wasn't enough, Kevin received the New Jersey Hall of Fame's Unsung Hero Award in 2018!

If you haven't figured it out yet, Kevin Hoagland is my guest on this week's QuadCast! Thanks for all you do on behalf of the SCI community Kevin!

30 years is a long time. It is 10,957.27 days, 1,565.33 weeks, 360 months, 262,974.6 hours, 15,778,476 minutes, and 946,708,560 seconds. But who's counting?

Me!

That's because as of today, August 19, 2022, it's exactly how long I have been living with my spinal cord injury. And in honor of that, I decided to interview me, myself, and I. It is not as easy as it sounds, and I apologize if it rambles on.

So, sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip (unfortunately down my basement steps). Please do stick around until the end for a special message to EVERYONE who has hung in there with me all these years!

Season 3 Episode 4 of the QuadCast features a new segment which I am calling: "In the Friend's Zone". My inaugural guest is Scott Matalevich, a gentleman I met through my peer counseling position at Kessler. We had the opportunity to chat this past 97° Saturday afternoon, and I hope you enjoy the conversation.

In 2004, at the age of 18, Josh Basile was paralyzed below the shoulders in a beach accident. Today, he is a C4-5 quadriplegic, power wheelchair user, medical malpractice lawyer, and disabilities rights advocate serving persons both in the courtroom and through policy initiatives. He is a community leader and changemaker who works tirelessly to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities and to continuously break down existing barriers to access and inclusion.

As if that weren’t enough, in 2007 he created SPINALpedia, the world’s largest paralysis video mentoring network with 23,000 videos searchable by physical functionality. Josh was kind enough to carve some time out of his busy schedule to join me for this episode of The QuadCast podcast.

On Black Friday, November 23, 2001 at 2:00 in the afternoon, Jeanine Valenti kissed her 3 young children goodbye and headed off to a colleague's mother's wake. Unbeknownst to her, a driver on the other side of the road had fallen asleep at the wheel, causing him to cross traffic and t-bone her car. Jeanine's irresponsibly engineered SUV flipped leaving her a C6-C7 quadriplegic.

She spent 1 month in the ICU followed by 4 months at Kessler Institute For Rehabilitation, putting her mind and body back together. Now an employee at Kessler, Jeanine runs the Think First program, is a featured lecturer in its Lunch and Learn series, and is a valued mentor to many newly injured patients. As if that weren't enough, she has just written a book called: "Rise To The Occasion", which will be published shortly.

Truth be told, Jeanine is my colleague and friend. She also happens to be my guest on this week's episode of The QuadCast.

Following a presentation at USC from Mark Cuban and Mark Burnett (Shark Tank), Trojans freshman Anthony Zhang, pitched his business, EnvoyNow. The delivery startup capitalizing on the neglected college market impressed the sharks enough to invest $100,000 for 10% of the business. Soon after, The Thiel Foundation offered him an additional $100,000 to drop out of school and focus on EnvoyNow full time. Life was great, or so it seemed.

Unfortunately, Anthony suffered a spinal cord injury, the result of diving into a pool in Las Vegas. Suddenly, everything he had been working on was put on hold. The young man who made building businesses from the ground up his career, would now have to do just that for his new body and mind.

Anthony is my guest on this episode of The QuadCast. I enjoyed getting to know him, and bring his remarkable story to you.

Reveca Torres is an artist, photographer, costume designer, illustrator, and C-5/7 spinal cord injury survivor and thriver since the age of 13 following a car accident in 1994. In 2009 she, Veronica Gott, Patricia Mikicic and Annie Gonzalez founded BACKBONES, a non profit organization whose mission is to help people with spinal cord injury or disease (SCI/D) and their families connect with their communities. They do this by creating events and experiences that promote awareness and engage people of all abilities.

Reveca was kind enough to carve some time out of her busy schedule to share her story with me on the latest episode of the QuadCast.

This week’s podcast combines two things that have been front and center for me most of my life, sports and spinal cord injury. I was twenty-three years old in 1991, working my dream job in sports television. Week 12 of the NFL season that year was November 17, and the day started out just as any other. However, late in the 4th quarter of the Detroit Lions/Los Angeles Rams game, that would change. Lions offensive lineman Mike Utley injured his spinal cord doing something he told us he’d done a million times prior to that fateful play, blocking. I recall watching in shock as he lay on the field, wondering what it must be like to be paralyzed. Little did I know less than a year later I’d find out for myself.

I have always admired Mike Utley from afar for his courage, strength, and class in facing such adversity on a national stage, So, I was thrilled when he agreed to join me for this week's episode of The QuadCast.

S2 E3 - Much To Discuss With Chad Hymas took a while to come together, but is now in the books. As they say, good things come to those who wait. After a few scheduling bumps in the road, I am proud to share with you my conversation with a man the Wall Street Journal calls: "One Of The 10 Most Inspirational People In The World."

Chad is a devoted husband, father of four (and now new grandfather), a decorated speaker, life coach, best-selling author, president of his own communications company and world-class wheelchair athlete. As if that weren’t enough, he is also one of the youngest ever to receive the Council of Peers Award For Excellence and to be inducted into the prestigious National Speaker Hall of Fame.

As you can see, I have clearly outkicked my coverage here, and I can't thank Chad enough for shoehorning the QuadCast into his uber busy schedule.