Get Greg Rolling

Many of you know Greg McMillan. You may know him as a coach or a teacher or perhaps just as a personal friend. However, what you might NOT know is Greg was born 11 weeks premature which left him with a birth defect, called Cerebral Palsy, that affects him from the hips down to his feet. He has never let it slow him down. He played little league and in high school he participated in Football and Tennis. He went on to WSU and was a football equipment manager for 4 years, standing next to, and gleaning from Coaches like Dennis Erickson and Jim Walden.  Greg followed in his father’s footsteps and became a teacher and a coach. He’s coached football for 29 years in addition to Golf, Tennis, Softball and Basketball. He is amazing with young people and has such a heart for those kiddos.

Greg has never let his CP get the best of him, he has never used it as a reason to quit or give up. However now, after 7 surgeries in the last 10 years, the race has turned up hill. He just doesn’t have the ability to stand for long periods or walk long distances especially if it is on uneven ground. This is making his love of Coaching and being around kids outside the classroom excessively challenging. Greg was able to borrow a golf cart for football practices last year but it was hard to store, hard to find a place to charge it and hard take from one place to another like away games. We rented a “mobility scooter” for summer practices but those types of devices are not meant to travel in the grass or gravel for long periods and even though the batteries were brand new, they wouldn’t last for an entire practice or game. And it was too heavy for him to load and unload it by himself. He decided he could not continue being the head tennis coach at Ike any longer and he has toyed with the idea of giving up football too.  The sadness in his voice when he speaks about giving up football is gut wrenching for me.  He has never given up in the past and I don’t want to see him start now. 

I believe we found an answer! A mobility device made for JUST the kind of terrain he faces on the football  field. This is made specifically to go out in the grass and gravel, to go up hills and over rough terrain and not get stuck when the ground gets a little soft or the grass is wet. It is a self-balancing wheel chair and it is small enough for him to load into his truck or even the back of our Honda CRV without help or an extra trailer!  This wheel chair would be customized to his measurements and specifically made for him. Unfortunately the  total cost of  this all terrain chair, and getting Greg back on the field, is a whopping $16,325.