When he was a boy growing up in public housing in New York City, James Rimmer, Ph.D., spent most of his time outside. “When I was a young kid, everything in my universe was outdoor sports — stickball, handball, stoop ball, whatever you could do to keep yourself busy,” he said.
No matter the sport, the ritual was always the same. “We would choose up sides, and how that worked was people would pick the best athletes and on down until you got everybody,” recalled Rimmer, professor, director of the UAB Research Collaborative, and Lakeshore Foundation Endowed Chair in Health Promotion and Rehabilitation Sciences in the School of Health Professions. “But it wasn’t really everybody. Children who were awkward or disabled were never chosen.” Even as a youngster, Rimmer knew this was not fair, he said: “I thought, ‘Everyone should have a chance.’”
Most of the other kids went home around 5 p.m. when their parents called them for supper. But Rimmer’s parents worked late, so he was still outside when the children with disabilities ventured out — after everyone else had gone in. “So I would teach them how to use a baseball glove, how to hold a stickball bat,” Rimmer said. “I found that to be very rewarding.”