Paralympic athlete Megan Hale helps others through sports
By Joyce Bassett / Special to the Times Union / Sept. 6, 2020
Megan Hale, a Physical Education Studies major, and
her guide dog, Hero, in Albany’s Washington
Park on Aug. 25, 2020. (Joyce Bassett)
A blind Hudson Valley Community College student/athlete planning a career as an adaptive physical education teacher is helping Microsoft refine software that will be used in the sport of orienteering.
Megan Hale of West Sand Lake and her guide dog Hero have participated in the pilot phase of testing out the software on a course in Washington Park in conjunction with volunteers and staffers from Capital Region Nordic Alliance and Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany.
Hale has tested the software three times this summer — once using only a cane, a second time using only her guide dog, and once again in late August. On that third trial, she used both her cane and the guidance of Hero while adeptly maneuvering through the 1.38-kilometer course.
Her Golden Labrador Retriever was a 16th birthday gift from Guiding Eyes for the Blind.
“Everyone else gets a car for their 16th birthday, I got a Labra-ghini” the 19-year-old joked.
Samantha Gartland, a mobility specialist at NABA, noted that Hale’s interest in sports helped convince the training organization to provide her with a guide dog — and a special one at that.
“Not every guide dog is trained to be a running guide,” Gartland said, adding that guide dog recipients generally need to be older to qualify for that kind of assistance. It’s a huge responsibility to make sure the dog stays trained and that her friends don’t treat the dog like a pet.
Hale learned that orienteering with a guide dog can be problematic.
“Guide dogs are trained to take you on a path while orienteering takes you off the path,” she said. “It’s very hard for a first-time user to break training of the dog and go into an open area. If you do it too much it could untrain what they’ve learned.”
That’s the type of feedback that Microsoft needs to refine its program, said Capital Region Nordic Alliance Executive Director Russ Myer, who is coordinating the testing.
Nordic Alliance runs four winter Paralympic sports for both men and women, veterans, adults and youth with disabilities: cross country skiing, biathlon, orienteering and bobsled/skeleton.
Orienteering — a winter sport — requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Myer set up the course in Washington Park with target points at some of the park’s famous landmarks: the Lake House, the bust of James H. Armsby (the co-founder of Albany Medical College), the Moses statue and playground.
The collaborative initiative between Microsoft Soundscape, based in Seattle, and Capital Region Nordic Alliance will eventually allow the visually impaired to navigate through a course independently and compete. Paralympic sports competitions are held at local, regional and national levels.
The Microsoft Soundscape program is an audio-based technology currently in use on iPhones that enables people, particularly those with blindness or low vision, to build a richer awareness of their surroundings, according to the Soundscape website.
The technology allows the user to become more confident and empowered to get around. Hale is all about that: she’s a quick learner and one who isn’t afraid to try new things, especially when it comes to sports. She participated in track since she was an eighth-grader in Averill Park schools. At Hudson Valley, she competes in the shot put and discus.
“I’m trying to convince them that javelin is OK, I’m working with them on that,” she said.
“I’ve also been doing some running, that’s why I got my dog so he can run with me in practice. Every now and then the throwers have to run and I wanted to do it,” she said.
She and Hero ran a 5K last fall in a fundraiser for mental illness awareness.
“Megan is a really good role model for our young NABA students,” Gartland said.
Hale plans to graduate from Hudson Valley in May and hopes to transfer to SUNY Brockport and major in adaptive physical education. She eventually wants to teach others what she’s learned and accomplished.
Maneuvering through new trails is just one more way for her to learn and teach.
“I want to help others,” she said.
Sports through the Capital Region Nordic Alliance helps her to do just that.
Link to article in the Times Union.
Published: Tue, 08 Sep 2020 12:10:26 +0000 by d.gardner