A profile on Jane Zdepski
Coaching Blind by Nic Faurot 1
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s it going to hurt?” “No” “Will it affect my children?”
“No” Jane Zdepski was just ten years out of college and pregnant with her first daughter when she discovered she was going blind. “Sometimes I wish I had chosen a different career path”, as a civil engineer she explains that unlike words she couldn’t just “piece together numbers” and couldn’t continue in that field, but for her, as one door closed another door opened, one that brought her closer to her family in ways she wouldn’t have ever expected. Fifteen years later she opened the door to a shed, and standing to her left, a line of parents were eagerly waiting for help; to her right two boys giggled as they scampered past her with their hands tucked i n s i d e their matte grey jerseys, stamped with the four let-
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ters, AYSO. Directly in front of her was a frenzy of color and laughter as dozens of kids scattered the fields of Bubb Elementary School to play soccer. “Hey Jane, can I grab a goal?” “Jane! Can you help me find what field my son is playing on?” Everywhere she looked, someone could use a hand, and she’s always there to give them one. Jane Zdepski has been blind for fifteen years and has spent many of those years volunteering for the AYSO organization of Region 45. As a coach she has brought her teams from region 45 to new heights. Teams that had never competed in tournaments outside of AYSO were coming out victorious under Jane’s management. To many parents her perplexed stare and binoculars can seem intimidating, but rest assured, she is just like any other mother. With four kids under her roof, she spends the majority of her time helping them in any way she can, and with the AYSO program under her lead as well, she has turned Region 45 into a more organized community that is expanding endlessly. W For Jane Zdepski, who was
“Caring, because she does absolutely everything she can for our family.” born in NJ and lived in a divided household, getting through school was no walk in the park. After finishing high school she was accepted into Rutgers University, because of her financial position she was unable to pay for the tuition and had to decline their offer. A few weeks later she received a call from Rutgers: “They asked me if I was going to attend and why I hadn’t given them an answer,” and after explaining her situation, “they offered to pay for half of my tuition and the other half could be covered by a student loan.” After graduating college from Rutgers, she worked as a civil engineer and it wasn’t until a few years out of college that she started to suspect her vision was becoming impaired. “I would do my taxes and 3 years in a row I added them up wrong, often just dollars and cents. So it was just odd that I was making these little mistakes”. Soon after she was pregnant with her first daughter she found out she had macular degeneration, “an eye disease that progressively destroys the
macula, the central portion of the retina, impairing central vision.” Jane states, I became pregnant with my first child Larisa and that was my last year of doing engineering work, and while I was pregnant I found out I had Stargardt’s, which is a juvenile form of macular degeneration, so I was going to lose my central vision. The doctor explained, “oh you’ll lose some vision, not that big of a deal... But I think he was afraid that I would get upset, because I was pregnant. After giving birth to Larisa, Jane went to New York city to an eye institute, where she was told she would eventually be-
come legally blind leaving her with between 2100 and 2800 vision. In 1995 Jane and her husband made the move from New Jersey to California, [which] was scary since I knew that I couldn’t see that well... The downside for me was that I had a professional engineering license in New Jersey and it doesn’t transfer to California because of the earthquake design requirements and I knew that with my bad eye sight it would be really difficult to go back to school. I can read text and make up 2 or 3 letters at a time and put words together in my head, but you can’t do that with numbers, you can’t look
at a number and imagine what should it be. After moving, she spent most of her time at home, running errands and doing as much as she could as her eyesight dwindled away. As the macular degeneration progressed, everything going on with her eyesight was all very “bizarre” for Jane. “I would drive my husband crazy as he’d tell me to ‘stop closing one eye.’ I’d watch him mow the lawn and place my hand on my right eye, and as he’d walk by his legs would disappear because he’d enter my blind spot.” Due to the macular degeneration, her eyesight was much like a donut, the
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retina, or center of her eye, destroyed; however, she was left with a ring around it that she could faintly see from, which helped her maintain the ability to read and write without too much of a struggle. “My brain has compensated a little to where it will fill in the data that my eye can’t receive, essentially filling in the blanks. So when I look at trees I can’t see the leaves but it will fill in green where I don’t have receptors in my retina in my brain” (Zdepski). One of the hardest things for her was how her blindness would affect her children. Jane explains, “I used to stare at my daughter and try to memorize
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her face, because I wanted to remember what she looked liked when I couldn’t see as well” (Zdepski). It wasn’t until after the birth of her second daughter that the effects of her genetic disease began to take their toll. The first day of kindergarten was when she lost her driver’s license. Later that year her eldest daughter Larisa came home wanting to play soccer. At the time the program was very small, unable to work under her major anymore, Jane volunteered to help out with AYSO. At first “I just wanted to make sure my daughter’s team had the brightest uniform so I knew I’d be able to recognize her”
(Zdepski). But her temporary position to see her daughter play turned into a new found passion. As her daughters grew up they stuck with the program and so did she, along with the addition of 2 more children, Linnea (17) and Peter (15). She has been the Division Coordinator of Region 45 soccer for 7 years now. Linnea explained how she was affected by her mother’s blindness. For the other two, they were able to experience what it was like before their mother went blind, they weren’t limited to what they could and couldn’t do. She’s been blind for most of my life, probably all of my life,
sion so it’s kinda just like a way for us to do something together and a give me more of a leadership opportunity, but I can also help my mom.” A few years after joining the AYSO community Jane accidently ended up coaching a boys team. “Often parents don’t have time to coach their kids and this is why we rely so much on volunteers like myself, we try to get the youth community involved too, including high school students like yourself ”(Zdepski). Towards the end of the season she decided to sign them up for a tournament, not knowing what to expect, aside from a unique experience she counted down the days. “Many of the moms would glare at me as if I was crazy or seemed too into the game because of my binoculars, but in reality I only wore them since I needed them to see my team”. It was the first tournament a region 45 team had competed in, walking in with nothing but their vibrant jerseys and smiles on their faces, walking out with first place medals around their necks. Their triumphant victory took them to states, where they
“Strong, because she never gives up despite her disability.” since she got her license taken away when I was 1 and a half. I couldn’t do a lot of the activities that a lot of other little girls could do when I was younger, like art class and gymnastics, I had to quit because I couldn’t find a way to and from. And when I was younger I didn’t really understand why that couldn’t happen and why I couldn’t do stuff. But as I got older I realized my parents wouldn’t do that if they had a choice, this was the only option, to not let me do the things we couldn’t do. Despite having to give up so much, she was always able to keep soccer. For Jane’s family soccer was part of who they were, it was one thing that was always an option. “I’ve been playing soccer with AYSO since I was 5, so I’ve been involved in the program for basically my whole life. And my mom does or has done everything for AYSO, and so I would always read emails to her and all this stuff, so I thought I might as well do it for myself now. And now that I’m older we both manage the same divi-
competed in Davis and won 3rd place. Despite her vision gradually diminishing over the years, the vision she had for the AYSO program prevailed. She and her daughter are currently in the process of further developing the Under 6 Program. Having two children left in high school, one sophomore and one senior, she is looking to “pass on the torch”, hopefully allowing her to focus on the areas of the program she is most passionate about. “Last year I told them I was going to step down, but as you can tell that didn’t happen, so hopefully this year someone else will take the lead, as much as I enjoy it, I want to be able to have my freedom, I want to be able to go visit my daughter in college, I don’t want to miss out on any more of my c h i l d re n’s lives.”
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Works Cited “British Photographer Focuses On Plight of 1 Billion Disabled People.” Africa News Service 28 Aug. 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Sept. 2015. Haddrill, Marilyn, Vance Thompson, and Geoffrey Tufty. “Stargardt’s Disease (Fundus Flavimaculatus).” All About Vision. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. Klazura, Victoria. Personal Interview. 5 October. 2015. Mannan, Hasheem, and Malcolm MacLachlan. “Disability and health: a research agenda.” Social Inclusion 1.1 (2013): 37+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 28 Sept. 2015. “What Is Macular Degeneration?” - AMDF. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015. White, Peter. Being Blind. Mankato, MN.: Smart Apple Media, 2000. Print. Zdepski, Jane. Personal Interview. 20 September. 2015. Zdepski, Linnea. Personal Interview. 22 September. 2015.
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