Expressive Arts, Basketball and Person-Centered Care
I graduated from SSU with a degree in Expressive Arts, with an emphasis in poetry, Class of 1982.
I recently discovered the founders of the program William “Mac” McCreary, and Hobart “Red” Thomas, attended a conference, held at a motel in Santa Rosa, led by seminal psychologist Carl Rogers, that fueled their founding the program. Rogers’ concept of person-centered therapy, flows into all my work with the Alzheimer's Poetry Project, with what in the aging field is called, “Person Centered Care.”
Another connection to SSU and the Expressive Arts program, also only recently discovered, is that my beloved basketball coach Don Vachini was one of the pioneers of Sonoma State athletics, (Class of 1966.)
He coached me at Hill Junior High School, in Novato, California from 1967 to 1969, so it is likely that was his first job after graduating. His wife of 51 years, Pat (Class of 1967) who passed away in 2017, writes in an interview from earlier that year, about her time at Sonoma State, “In my case, dedicated professors Hobart Thomas, G. W. Redwine and Stan Goertzen deserve praise for channeling my interest in the growing field of psychology with innovative courses and being readily available for advice and guidance.”
It is as if the principles of Rogers and by extension McCreary and Thomas, seeped into the way I view poetry and unconsciously informs the Alzheimer's Poetry Project. Now I know, not only from them, but through Mrs. Vachini’s certain influence on her husband and how he saw his role as an educator first and coach second. He studied under Dr. Rudloff who devised the initial curriculum for Physical Education, at Sonoma State in 1963.
Coach Vachini, states in the same interview on his education and teaching philosophy, “On the cutting edge of technology at the time, their training helped me gain a closer insight into the human body and its functions and helped lay the foundation for a distinguished 39-year career as a PE teacher and coach in the Novato Unified School District.
I found my niche on Hill Junior High School, Spartans, where a student-friendly program based on individual improvement, self-motivation, self-monitoring and accountability was very effective and highly rewarding.”
That could just as easily be describing the Expressive Arts program, with its student led learning and cutting-edge idea of developing our own curriculum. Coach Vachini went beyond sports, to a deeper learning by teaching his players what it meant to develop life goals.
I was voted “Team Captain,” of our 9th grade team. After the vote was tabulated, Steve Lucas my arch-rival correctly surmised I had voted for myself, saying, “You voted for yourself, didn’t you Glazner! You can’t vote for yourself!” To which I just laughed and said, “Well I certainly wasn’t going to vote for you Lucas!”
Coach Vachini key word was "Tenacity," I can clearly recall, in the huddles during games, him saying, “You have got to be tenacious on defense Glazner.” I took to heart his speeches and pep talks on the benefits of Tenacity and not a day goes by where I don't use the lessons I learned from McCreary, Thomas and Coach Vachini in my work for performing and creating poems with people living with memory loss.
One last story about my basketball glory days. As the point guard my job was to bring the ball up and I found myself being double teamed, and getting close to a backcourt violation, where you have 8-seconds to bring the ball over the half court line. I was stuck with the two players all over me. I calmly looked at the referee and called time-out. Coach Vachini was furious, as time-outs are used strategically and only called by the coach. He shouted at me, “Glazner, don’t ever do that again!” Then leaned in and said, “But that was a pretty cool solution.”