The
Villages Daily Sun
The Villages, Florida
2-6-2006
IKAN
Bowler® allows those suffering from spinal
cord injuries to hit the lanes
By ELISHA PAPPACODA, DAILY SUN
 |
| Marguerite Sharp, right,
places the bowling ball on the Ikan Bowler®
of Bill Miller's wheelchair as he prepares
to bowl a strike at the Spanish Springs
Lanes in The Villages. George Horsford /
Daily Sun |
THE VILLAGES — Bill
Miller glides down the waxed lanes of Spanish
Springs
Lanes bowling center and carefully
lines up his shot before pausing at the foul
line. He releases the ball, which rolls slowly,
but steadily, toward its 10 targets. As it smashes
the pins, a single one remains standing.
“Should have been a strike,”
remarks Miller, who, with a hard sip of air,
reverses his power wheelchair and rolls back
to the ball return. Miller, a 29-year-old quadriplegic,
is the inspiration behind, and co-creator of,
the IKAN Bowler®, a device that allows even
those suffering from severe spinal cord injuries
an opportunity to hit the lanes.
“This is real bowling,”
Miller said, leaning back in his wheelchair.
“How well I drive my chair and execute
the shot — that’s how well I bowl.”
The apparatus, which was developed
in Leesburg, has progressed from a crude wooden
attachment to a strong, yet durable, aluminum,
stainless steel and PVC ramp that connects to
the footrest of almost any wheelchair. At the
direction of the bowler, a caddy places the
ball atop the ramp. The chair, rolling at no
more than four mph, creates the momentum while
inertia drives the ball down the ramp and onto
the lanes. Skilled bowlers can even put a spin
on their shots by instructing their aide in
positioning the ball’s finger holes.
The American Bowling Congress
and the Women’s International Bowling
Congress approved it for league play, and it
won a 2004 da Vinci Award for outstanding engineering.
Miller’s father, Jim
Miller, recently donated $25,000 to The Rotary
Club of The Villages, which will in turn purchase
25 of the devices — complete with the
new IKAN Power Soccer attachment — from
the IKAN Sports Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
The equipment, which is designed to get disabled
people “back into the game of life,”
will be marked with the club’s logo and
be distributed to 25 wheelchair-bound recipients.
“These devices help people
who have been traumatized by the fact that they
can no longer walk anymore and are confined
to a wheelchair,” said Rotary Club President
Jo Weber. “They need this device to go
through rehab and to (let them know that) you’re
still a part of us.”
The Rotary Club of The Villages
adopted the IKAN Sports Foundation as its Centennial
Project. In 2003, The Rotary Club matched funds
raised by The Villages Elementary of Lady Lake
students, and together purchased three IKAN
Bowlers®. The club donated the bowlers to
the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, the late Wendell
Howell of Eustis and Jennifer Harman, 23, of
Altamonte Springs, who, during a Fourth of July
party in 2000 dove into a shallow lake just
three feet deep and emerged from the water paralyzed.
“It was basically cool
to try a sport I thought I would never get a
chance to try again,” Harman said of her
IKAN Bowler®. “Socially, I never went
out with my old friends that aren’t in
wheelchairs, so it was cool to meet other quads.”
She said she expects the next
round of recipients to share her sentiments.
“It would really benefit
a lot of people’s lives, I’m sure,”
she said.
The men
behind the machine
Miller was an active young
math major beginning his senior year at the
University of Florida in 1997. In a moment,
life as he knew it changed forever when he tripped
in his dorm room and broke his neck. The freak
accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.
Once Bill returned home from
the hospital, his family fretted over ways to
improve his quality of life. His stepmother,
Lake County Circuit Judge Donna Miller, was
convinced Miller could somehow participate in
a recreational activity.
What started as bowling with
empty soda bottles on the family’s Leesburg
driveway eventually evolved into the lightweight,
high-quality IKAN Bowler®, a device with
the potential to bring hope to thousands.
While volunteering as a bailiff
in Judge Miller’s courtroom, Canadian
expatriate Claude Giguere, of Leesburg, noticed
a photograph on her bench that pictured the
wheelchair-bound young man.
Upon hearing of Miller’s
plight, Giguere, a retired General Motors engineer,
began working on the device’s first prototype.
He cobbled together wood and straps, and used
Miller as his willing guinea pig. The first
mechanism weighed 53 pounds, and had to be put
back together after each shot, Giguere said.
But through grueling trial and error, and with
bloodshot eyes in the early morning hours at
Spanish Springs, the device was worked into
a patented precision bowling arm and universal
mount that attaches to almost any wheelchair’s
footrest.
“This was developed right
here in Spanish Springs,” said Giguere.
Giguere, Miller and Tampa businessman
Vince Tifer formed the MGT Corporation and began
manufacturing the apparatus. MGT works closely
with the IKAN Sports Foundation to promote “barrier-free
bowling.”
They named it IKAN, short for
Ikanos, a Greek word meaning to enable.
Miller formed the Quad Squad,
a bowling team that began with six bowlers who
met every month at Spanish Springs Lanes. Miller
holds the team’s record, with a score
of 201 — higher than many able-bodied
bowlers.
“I have learned more
in the past three years about humanity than
in the previous 60 years of my life,”
Giguere said of the Quad Squad. “Those
kids are the most beautiful people in the world,
bar none.”
A shot
at the future
Seven years after his accident,
Miller began taking classes once more through
a University of Florida online business bachelor’s
degree program.
“I watch my classes over
the Internet in my own home,” Miller said.
“I was thrilled to go back. I’m
also thrilled to see The Villages Rotary Club
distribute the IKAN Bowlers® throughout
the country.”
By summer 2008, Miller hopes
to graduate with honors, but also has some more
large-scale goals in mind.
“I could be in China
demonstrating the IKAN Bowler®,” said
Miller, who is working to get bowling considered
for the Paralympics by demonstrating the device
in the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
“If I can bowl, anybody
in a wheelchair can bowl, too,” he said.
“Coming soon to a city near you ... ”
Elisha Pappacoda is a reporter
with the Daily Sun. She can be reached at 753-1119,
ext. 9268, or at elisha.pappacoda@thevillagesmedia.com.
One thing I’d like to
clarify, is that 25 different Blaze Sports organizations
(all over the country) will be the recipients,
not individuals. Each of the 25 selected Blaze
Sports organizations will receive a universal
mount, an IKAN Bowler® attachment and an
IKAN Soccer Guard attachment (the mount works
with both). These organizations have chosen
the mission to incorporate people with disabilities
into sports, and already have wheelchair users
coming to them with interest. The Villages Rotary
here will be a "sister club" to the
local Rotary where these Blaze Sports organizations
are. Our hope is that the local Rotary Clubs
will see the need and help equip their local
Blaze organization for the benefit of all the
wheelchair users in their community. Power Soccer
is the fastest growing wheelchair sport (especially
for quads) in the country, and each team has
4 players competing at one time.
Bill
Miller
Back
to Articles
|
