Brooklyn, NY
CONFESSION: this is my little sister – we played together a lot in school. I’m 65% confident I fouled out and was benched this game. What a dope pic none-the-less.
Basketball in particular has had a choke hold on my family since the 80’s. My mother, standing at 6’2, was badass on the court, averaging 40 points a game. She led her high school team to the 1982 state championship in East Des Moines, Iowa, eventually solidifying her spot as a hall of famer. Some of the juice my mama had, trickled down to me as an adolescent – I certainly looked the part.
I played for a while in my younger years as a lengthy power forward. I’m only 5’7, but appear much taller in person; I just happen to be long-bodied.
My genetic ‘go-go gadget’ arms were often used to grab rebounds, moving the ball to the front on defense, however, it was evident from the outset that I am not a shooter. You could absolutely count on me to overestimate where the hoop is.
Around 11th grade, I started to make a heavy transition toward the arts: a lot of theater, a lot of dance and a lot of music fueled my creative expression and felt like a better fit.
Sports didn’t do it for me anymore. Jazz hands definitely did.
A couple months ago, I came across Kyle Mengelkamp via Instagram – a well-known advocate in the young stroke survivor community with a similar tie into sports, brain bleeds and the arts. He created #StrokeofGenius: a nonprofit group of content creators, dedicated to sharing the stories of survivors with brain injuries who have overcome to live happy, healthy lives.
Kyle experienced his own clash with a brain aneurysm back in 1997. The then 11-year-old, was at a beach in Santa Barbara, CA with his friends after pitching a no-hitter in an all-star baseball game at the time of his incident. The unfortunate event impacted Kyle’s right side and like most of us in the community, he went on to do a number of treatments to aid in his recovery including speech, physical and mental health therapies.
By the time high school came around, he would be reintroduced to sports, developing the ‘Kyle Style’: a way of maneuvering his body that would allow him to functionally compete in athletics with his teammates. Although the ‘Kyle Style’ became a solution for participation, there would be a limit to how far he could advance in the game. When it was time for him to make a pivot, he looked to a trusted source for advice.
“I talked to my coach about a new video production class opening up – I couldn’t do both [play basketball and take the class]. He told me, ‘The new Kyle is for you to discover who you are and what you are meant to be. If this means going into video production to tell stories, you have everyone’s support. It’s your choice.’ That gave me permission to try new things. It opened up a new pathway for me to explore.”
Building off of his new interest, Kyle would go on to become a Content Producer for the NY Mets, Youtuber Jim Kwik, Lacoste and other brands, giving him a leg up to pursue what would be his next venture. He met an unlikely friend in 2017, who kicked open the door.
“I went to an AT&T video contest just to network and met an elderly woman from San Francisco that stumbled into the event by accident. She sat down in the theater chairs next to me and said, ‘So what's your story?’ We chatted for a bit and decided to meet up the next day. She came with a proposal to do the video contest on my story. I agreed, only if we could put all the resources together in a few hours. I called everyone in my network and made it happen. We shot, I edited the video overnight, and out of 50 submissions, I won 1st place.”
From this chance meeting, the seed was planted; Kyle wanted to find a way to serve in the brain injury community, but didn’t know how. He went on to expand #StrokeofGenius, integrating other survivor stories.
The Illustrious Kyle.
“We raised 20k and went cross-country looking for people who had a brain injury and triumphed over tragedy to live happy healthy lives. Coming back from this journey, we noticed all of the people we met and interviewed had a similar way to finding their ‘stroke of genius,’ This inspired a change in our core message to mean: ‘that moment where you choose how to live the rest of your life.’ We all have that moment, it usually comes up in conversation between yourself, your friends, a family member or a kind stranger at a bar.”
One of his favorite interviews came out of a round-table discussion he held with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, an author and Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, who at 37 experienced a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain.
Her book, “My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey,” is a staple in the stroke community and was recommended to me during the time of my recovery. In it, she chronicles a play-by-play of her mind deteriorating as it’s happening.
Kyle has his hand in a number of spin-off projects stemming from the #StrokeofGenius brand including The Brain Bar Salon – a gathering of like-minded individuals, celebrating people within the brain injury community, and his upcoming mini-doc, “Reborn Decades Apart.”
“We [Ty Hawkins and Cory Weissman] are all one decade apart and played basketball competitively. Ty is 2 years out, Cory is 12 years out, and I am almost 25 years out. We are all around the same age - 30 something. The mini-doc shows a different perspective of stroke recovery through the decades.”
His biggest lesson from all of this?
“Your story about what happened isn’t your story; it’s what you create in your new life. You are going to fail, get knocked down, stumble from defeat to defeat, however, you can create any possibility in your new life after a brain injury.”
You can find Kyle at @shareyourstrokeofgenius on Instagram.
Fast5 Facts:
Define Success: Love, Friends, Family
Coffee or Tea of Choice: Mocha on Weekends
Who/What Is Your Motivator: Everyone else
What Balances You: Playing Street Basketball
Favorite Color: Blue