Rollin’ Illini, a sports talk radio show at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will take their show out of the studio and onto streets of Champaign-Urbana this Saturday to run in the Illinois Marathon 10K. They are raising money for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and Illini Media, their parent company.
The crew, including broadcast journalism students James Boyd, Ryan Wilson, and Will Gerard, will race together on Saturday, April 28 with the goal of “redefining what it means to have a disability.”
“We’re really excited to be raising money for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation,” said Gerard, a junior at Illinois and producer on the show. “Our goal is to bring our audience to a place where they better understand life with cerebral palsy, and more broadly speaking, a disability.”
Wilson, partnering with the Center for Teaching, Innovation, and Learning (CITL), will have a 360 degree camera strapped to the front of his wheelchair during the race, allowing people to understand a different perspective of racing a 10K during the Illinois Marathon. Boyd and Gerard will be running along with him, too, with microphones on.
“We chose the 10K distance because I think we’re all looking for a challenge. Personally, I wanted to test out the chair,” said Wilson, a senior at Illinois and host of the show.
The crew produces a weekly televised radio show on WPGU 107.1 on Friday nights at 7 p.m. They first came together two years ago to talk about Paralympic sports and what it means to have a disability. They have explored everything from “wheelchair racing to wheelchair dancing.”
“I’ve been on the show for a year and it’s been a great experience for me, being able to explore and amplify the experiences of people with an impairment or a disability—things I didn’t really think about before,” said Boyd, a senior at Illinois and co-host of the show. “But since coming on the show, I’ve learned a lot from the crew and the many people we’ve talked to, including athletes, coaches, and more.”
The team enjoys the opportunity to interview people from all over the world and share stories of individuals with both visible and invisible impairments.
“I love connecting our guests with our audience, and vice versa,” said Wilson. “We try to share experiences that reinforce the commonality of the human condition.”
You can donate by visiting their campaign website. You can follow their journey on race day on Facebook and Twitter. They will also be broadcasting from the University of Illinois’ Snapchat (@uofillinois) on Saturday.