Homewood-Flossmoor basketball coach Roy Condotti calls Brian Nussbaum “a 100-percenter,” and it’s easy to understand why.
The 6-foot-6-inch senior forward seems to excel in whatever he attempts. He plays basketball well enough to start on a 24-1 team ranked No. 1 in the Chicago area, and he sings well enough to be a member of H-F’s prestigious Viking Choir.
Nussbaum, though, does his best work in the summer as a counselor at a South Suburban Special Recreation Association camp, where he has dealt mainly with autistic children. What he faces there is tougher than the closing seconds of an overtime game at Bloom, but he handles the job as if it were an uncontested layup.
“He is really one of a kind,” SSSRA day camp coordinator Lisa Drzewiecki said. “Not too many teenage boys are interested in working with that ability level of children. He’s just phenomenal.”
Nussbaum became involved with SSSRA in 2002 when his team played host to a group of young adults with special needs after an H-F practice. The players put their guests through basketball drills, then coached them in a game and ate pizza with them. Last week, the team conducted this wonderful event for the third straight year.
SSSRA Executive Director Janet Porter noticed how naturally Nussbaum mingled with her group’s individuals that first year. She saw it again several weeks later when he attended an SSSRA banquet with his father, Mike, who attended it in his role as a commissioner with the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District.
Porter asked Brian to consider working in an SSSRA day camp, and he jumped at the opportunity.
“I love to work with kids and thought working with kids with disabilities would be a good learning experience for me,” he said.
He has learned even more than he bargained for the last two summers. His camp, located in Tinley Park, has just 12 campers, ages 6 through 12, and Nussbaum works with just a few at a time. Still, his work, which includes activities ranging from sports to dancing to arts and crafts, demands the patience of a fisherman and the forbearance of a kindergarten teacher.
Some campers lack verbal skills, so Nussbaum and his colleagues may communicate by, say, holding up a picture of a swimmer when it’s time for swimming. Other campers might lose their tempers or become emotional for little or no reason.
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Nussbaum’s patience, empathy and love for kids make him a natural for this duty. So does his knack for sensing what his campers like and dislike.
“Brian is so tolerant and very gentle with the children, and that’s what makes him an exceptional worker for us,” Drzewiecki said. “He just communicates and gets down to their level.
“He has that way of just talking with them where they might not always understand but know he’s there for them by his body language, like they know he’s their friend and is there to help them. They flock to him.”
Nussbaum works 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays for about six bucks an hour. A friend makes more as a busboy but isn’t getting the education SSSRA offers.
“Mostly I’ve learned to be a lot more patient and understanding with different situations and different groups of people,” said Nussbaum, who already is looking forward to his third summer at the day camp. Working there, he said, is occasionally draining but nonetheless addictive.
“Once I did it, I instantly kind of fell in love with it and the kids,” he said. “Once you work with them, you kind of get hooked and it’s hard to stop doing it. It’s a blast.”
Nussbaum’s patience and positive attitude have come in handy on a basketball team on which senior guard Excell Hardy, senior center Cyrus Tate and junior forward Julian Wright grab most of the attention.
He is nonetheless an accomplished all-around player in his own right who hopes the occasional interest he is drawing from Division I recruiters will pick up during the state tournament. If not, Nussbaum, an outstanding student, will make some Division II or III coach quite happy.
“Brian is the kind of committed athlete who gives his all,” Condotti said. “He never misses practice and doesn’t care if he’s the guy drawing attention or someone else is.
“He’s just one of those kids who will help someone else out. He’s got a really great attitude and a nice idea of what’s important in life and what’s not.”
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