Speaker defies 'handicap' label, breaks through preconceptions

Brett Eastburn, who has no arms or legs, loves seeing audience views change.
By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
BROOKFIELD -- There's a loud gasp from the crowd of preteens once Brett Eastburn breaks a piece of wood in two.
It would be an impressive feat for anyone to use martial-arts training to break a board, but the pupils at Brookfield Middle School are even more impressed by Eastburn, who was born with no arms or legs.
"My entire life is based on finding different ways to get around and different ways to do things," Eastburn, a motivational speaker from Indiana, told the crowd of pupils Friday.
Born in 1971, Eastburn has a congenital birth defect known as quadmembral limbs deficiency, which leaves him with only stumps of flesh without hands or feet. Doctors have no explanation of why he was born that way or what causes the defect, he tells the crowd, but it's never stopped him.
He travels the country about 200 days a year, peppering his humorous speech with physical displays of his talents -- he throws a perfect spiral pass with a football, dribbles a basketball, uses a permanent marker to draw a picture of a cat, breaks a board and wrestles and pins an audience member. Every feat brings a fresh, thunderous sign of approval from the pupils.
"I think it's amazing that I'm the only man I know of who gets a round of applause for opening a can of pop," he jokes.
Defying definitions
Referring to himself as "The Stump," Eastburn questions the pupils and teachers about their definition of handicapped. He tells them how, over the years, he's heard the word explained as signifying someone who's different, who is missing parts, who is in a wheelchair or who can't do something.
"The definitions I always get are about somebody who can't, who's not able," he said. "In the dictionary I read, a handicap is some 'thing' that can slow you down, get in your way. It said nothing about 'someone.'"
He then goes on to list all he's accomplished in his life: He's an accomplished swimmer and baseball, football, basketball and soccer player; a nationally recognized artist; fourth-place finisher in the nation in the 1988 Amateur Athletic Union wrestling competition; and former store detective who apprehended shoplifters.
But his passion these days is touring and speaking to groups, especially those in middle and high school. He's used to the stares and comments from people of all ages, he said, and chuckles a little about how some people seem to think if they touch him, their own limbs will fall off.
"But the youths seem to overcome it a lot more quickly, because they're not afraid of always trying to stay politically correct," he said. "They usually come right out and ask what happened to my arms and legs, and I tell them I was born that way. That's it; we move on."
Watching realization
But no matter to whom he speaks, he says, his favorite part is watching the transition in the audience's eyes; watching them go from giving looks of pity to looks of awe and inspiration are what he loves best.
"I am setting my goals in life, I'm going after them, and for the most part, I am achieving them," he says.
For more information on Eastburn, check the Web site www.bretteastburn.com.
slshaulis@vindy.com