Former wrestler prepares for career teaching blind children

by Mark McGowan

Bill Closson is an imposing guy.

A two-time, Division I All-American heavyweight collegiate wrestler from Pittsburgh, Closson won the Pennsylvania state championships in high school and placed sixth during the 1996 Olympic trials. Tall and muscular, he looks like the top bouncer at the hippest nightclub in town.

Yet Closson, who “hung up the shoes” seven years ago and became a high school social studies teacher, has his sights on a career to help children without sight. Closson is a master’s degree student in NIU’s Programs in Vision, located in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education.

“You’re there to put them on a level playing field,” Closson said. “Being a teacher goes well beyond the classroom. It’s important for teachers to represent the demographics of society. Children need role models from every group, and different kids are going to identify with different teachers.”

Coordinated by Professor Gaylen Kapperman, NIU’s course of study is among the country’s best and largest programs in blindness and visual impairment, preparing students to become teachers of visually impaired children, rehabilitation specialists for newly blinded adults and instructors of orientation and mobility.

Closson, and students like him, are desperately needed.

“You do not have to be female to teach blind kids. You can be a ‘macho man’ and still be a teacher of blind kids,” Kapperman said. “That’s the point. We have one hell of a time recruiting male teachers into our area.”

As an undergrad at Lehigh University, Closson studied business and never gave “a lot of thought” to a different career until performing volunteer work at the local Boys and Girls Club.

“I thought, ‘This is what I want to do – work with kids.’ It was a little late to switch majors,” said Closson, who was in his junior year then at a university without an undergraduate education program.

He later began work toward a master’s degree in education at Kutztown University, where he found further inspiration in Robert Fisher, the wrestling coach. Fisher, who received his bachelor’s degree in special education for the visually impaired from Kutztown in 1995, went on to serve as a teacher of the blind and visually impaired in Summerdale, Penn., from 1996 to 1999.

“I was not even aware that these programs existed,” Closson said. “In wrestling, you see athletes who are visually impaired, but this program was my first exposure to the educational and personal development that got these athletes to that level.”

At NIU, Closson is pursuing dual certification as a teacher of visually impaired children and in orientation and mobility. He will graduate in December and, this summer, will work an internship in orientation and mobility at the Hines VA Hospital near Chicago before student-teaching. The Blind Rehabilitation Center at Hines VA is one of nine active blind rehabilitation facilities in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Closson also volunteers as a coach for the Wisconsin Association of Blind Athletes, where he taught wrestling and judo.

“I appreciate the problem-solving component: ‘What do I need to do to get this kid on par with his peers?’ ” he said. “I like that I can get involved with athletics, too.”

He embraces his role as an advocate for the field he has chosen.

“It’s a tragedy when services do exist and people aren’t receiving them,” he said. “We teach the skills that enable students who are visually impaired to lead a productive life.”

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