Media Articles
Jim Rockwell has been written up in numerous publications, ranging from major newspapers such as the L.A. Times and San Diego Union-Tribune to community newspapers and school newsletters. He has also appeared on various TV and Radio programs - check out the Testimonials & References page for more information.
The following is a partial list of newspapers and magazines which have featured articles about the Rockwell Project.
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NBWA
Beer Perspectives, February 28, 2000
JIM ROCKWELL SHOWS TEENS DANGERS OF DRINKING AND DRIVINGSome may remember Jim Rockwell from NBWA's Annual Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada last year. For those who don't, Jim is one of the most influential public speakers in the nation on the subject of underage drinking and driving. Jim's presentations "hit home" with students because he is more than just a public speaker, he is living proof of the tragedies that occur due to underage drinking and driving.
Jim is the main focus of The Rockwell Project, a program targeting teens and other young adults. In an effort to deter underage drinking, It highlights Jim's experiences, both before and after he was nearly killed in a drunk driving accident. Jim feels that some young people pay more attention to his message because "some kids need to see the consequences of someone real, not hear about tragedies they can only imagine. Reality is, for some, the only learning tool left, short of a fatal accident."
Jim conducts hundreds of educational seminars a year, to high school students and other young adults. In sharing his personal experiences, he explains that after a day of excessive alcohol consumption and truancy from school, he felt invincible. He then chose to drive his car and was involved in an auto accident that almost ended his life at the age of 16. A near head-on collision with another driver forced Jim to swerve and hit a telephone pole. Doctors had not expected him to live, but he did, although in a coma for the next six weeks. Following the coma, he spent seven months recuperating in the hospital. Doctors informed Jim's parents that he would never regain his speech or motor skills. After years of rehabilitation and continuing programs of therapeutic exercise, he can now walk and talk again and live independently: however, he will never drive a car again and his motor skills and sight are impaired for life.
The impact of Jim's education programs has received significant attention and has been covered by many newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and California Monthly.
Jim's company, The Rockwell Project, continues to work toward reducing underage drinking.
NBWA salutes Jim and his company for their significant efforts to reduce underage drinking and driving.
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San
Diego Union-Tribune, May 26 1999
YOUTHS HEAR ATHLETES, VICTIM WARN OF PERILS
By Frank Klimko, Staff WriterThe last time Jim Rockwell drove drunk, he smacked into a telephone pole and wound up under his car, bleeding and unconscious.
The first paramedics to arrive thought he was dead. He survived, but he spent six weeks in a coma and years in physical therapy before he could walk and talk again.
Rockwell, 42, walked -- actually his walk is more like a swaying shuffle -- to a podium yesterday and shared the story of his teen-aged drunken recklessness with a crowd of high school students.
"I was drunk all day and I thought I was indestructible," Rockwell said. "I went through the windshield of my car and it turned out I wasn't so indestructible."
Rockwell, of Santa Ana , spoke as part of an alcohol awareness assembly at the Coors Amphitheatre attended by about 2,000 Sweetwater Unified High School District students. All district driving-age students were urged to attend the assembly, which was meant to discourage underage drinking and drunken driving, said Wes Braddock, school district coordinator of the Safe Schools program.
School officials are mindful of the drunken driving threat this time of the year because graduation for most seniors is just three weeks off. Many are tempted with underage drinking, even though they are warned that alcohol-related accidents are the Number 1 killer among teen-agers.
Community leaders and professional athletes -- including Ronnie Lott, an ex-San Francisco 49er, and Mikhael Ricks, a Chargers wide receiver, spoke at the two-hour event.
Ricks, 24, described the deaths of two buddies in a drunken driving accident when he was in high school in Anahuac, Texas. They attended a party together where underage drinking occurred. Ricks went home early. The next morning he learned that the two were dead.
"What we're really trying to tell the kids is that they don't have to drink to have fun," Ricks said, "and that 21 really is 21," the minimum drinking age.
But it was Rockwell who really punched home the anti-drunken driving message.
Rockwell was 16 and had been drinking all day. He left a party about 10 p.m. and was driving his Datsun 240Z along a road in Anaheim Hills when a car veered into his lane.
Rockwell swerved to miss the other car and his car ran into a telephone pole. The impact threw him from the car, which then rolled over him, partly crushing his head and injuring his spinal cord.
Doctors did not think he would live, and when he came out of a coma the nerve injuries were so traumatic that he had to relearn many basic life skills.
Rockwell cannot drive a car, is deaf in one ear, has no peripheral vision and has difficulty maintaining his balance. His message was not lost on the students. "It makes a big impression," said Kyle Olson, 16, of Chula Vista, a Hilltop High School sophomore. "I'm not going to drink and drive, because I see what could happen to you."
Chris Johnston, 16, also a Hilltop sophomore, said he was impressed. "He showed you the connection between drunken driving and what could happen," Chris said.
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Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1994
LONG ROAD BACK LEADS TO HIGH SCHOOL
A Cal State Fullerton Student Wants Others to Learn From His Near-fatal Experience as a Drunk Driver 10 Years Ago.
By Dan Nieto, Special to The Times.James Rockwell learned the hard way to view life as a reward, not a party. Ten years ago, at age 16, he nearly lost his life when he was the driver in a drunk-driving accident. Now he is trying to reach teen-agers by spreading the message about the problems that drinking and ditching school can cause.
More than 800 students listened in silence recently at Mission Viejo High School, where, as he has at other schools, Rockwell shared the story of his gruesome accident. On Feb. 17, 1984, he and two of his friends ditched school to drink and party. At 10:30 p.m., he and his friends left the party. On their way home, Rockwell swerved to avoid hitting an on coming car, but he didn't react in time to avoid striking a telephone pole. Rockwell, not wearing a seat belt, was thrown through the windshield and landed down an embankment. His car rolled on top of his head, turning it into a "disgusting pool of blood."
He was pronounced dead at the scene and taken to the hospital for confirmation tests. It was there that the doctors detected a light pulse as Rockwell lay in a deep coma. His two passengers were also injured, but both fully recovered. Rockwell was less fortunate. He suffered permanent brain damage from the accident. The right side of his face is paralyzed, his right eye only opens halfway, and he walks with a limp. His recovery was long and painful.
"I was in a coma almost two months," Rockwell says. "I don't remember the first month, but I do remember the second." Although not able to respond, he was aware of the scores of friends and family members visiting him. "I learned who my real friends were," he says. "I think they are the reason why I pulled out of the coma." After months of lying helpless, he did the unthinkable: He moved his fingers. Soon after, he awoke from the coma.
It took several years of physical therapy for Rockwell to re-learn to walk and speak. Now in his twenties, the Cal State Fullerton student has decided to try to help others learn from his experience. "There is more to life than just drinking and partying," he tells his audiences. "There is living."
Rockwell has traveled to hundreds of intermediate and high schools to spread his message. "I love going to schools to try to help students get away from alcohol," he says. "They don't realize that it is poison. My goal in life is to speak to as many teen-agers as I possibly can. I want the opportunity to make a difference in other cities in our state, to benefit young lives. If just one person stops drinking because of me, then I know I have succeeded." Rockwell speaks of values and priorities to students.
"I used to have my priorities set," he says. "My family, school and religion always came ahead of everything. Then those priori ties flip-flopped. I put friends and beers ahead of them. Now look where I am."
Rockwell says his teen-age drinking problem was easy to hide. He came from a Mormon family, was an outstanding athlete and a good student. No one suspected he had a problem.
"I had a 3.5 GPA, was on the student government, played varsity football and soccer, and was a popular kid," he says. "I was just like any of you. If you make the wrong decision, you can end up like me or worse."
By the end of the presentation, his message was felt by many in the Mission Viejo student body. "It was real sad listening to him speak because, as students, we can relate to the problem of teen-age drinking," senior Michael Morales said. "It's also nice to see someone who has gone through so much pain come to our school to try and set an example. I'll think twice next time I go to a party."
Says Rockwell: "There are two don'ts in every teen-ager's life. They both start with the letter D. Don't ditch and don't drink."
Dan Nieto is a senior at Mission Viejo High School.
- California
Monthly, November 1998
THE ROCKWELL PROJECT
by Michael LarkinWhen I began my freshman year at Cal twenty four years ago, I was eager to change from a sheltered suburbanite into a Man of the World. Shortly after my arrival, I returned to the Unit I dorm one afternoon to find my door open. Realizing my roommate had arrived, I steeled myself for the inevitably awkward first meeting.
I wasn't steeled for Jim Rockwell.
I walked in and was met with an enthusiastic, "Hey dude, I'm Jim!" in a slightly slurred baritone and with a hand offered unsteadily to shake. Jim's right eyelid was shut in a permanent blink, and his left eye regarded me from behind thick-lensed glasses. His movements alternated between slow meanders and jerky rushes. His tongue ventured out of a corner of his mouth as he spoke, his words seeming to gain momentum from this gesture. A black cane leaned against his bed. Bewildered, I shook his hand.
He saw the look on my face and said, "Don't worry, dude, I'm like this because of a little car accident I had a couple years ago." The "little" accident had been a horrible one, caused partly by Jim, driving after drinking a little himself. The accident left Jim in a coma for over a month. Doctors had not expected him to live, but eventually he woke up, confounding everyone. He couldn't see or hear very well anymore, and the right half of his body wouldn't cooperate with his brain's commands to move. His smile became a crooked one in which the left half of his face would jauntily tug on the intransigent right. He endured extensive physical therapy, learning how to walk and speak all over again.
As he realized the extent of his injuries, Jim also realized who his real friends were. Many whom he'd called friends deserted him, unable to handle his condition. After a few hospital visits, only his family and true friends remained. When Jim recounted this part of his story weeks after we'd first met, he evinced no bitterness, but I was enraged. How could people he'd counted as friends desert him?
On that first day, however, I was as bad as the deserters. When we walked into the Cal dining commons for our first meal together, people stared unabashedly at Jim wobbling and balancing a food tray, his cane hanging from his forearm. I was mortified by the staring. My face flushed. I prayed for a magical roommate mix-up. Surely there had been some mistake.
Jim recognized people's stares and mostly ignored them. But the anger he had every right to express would sometimes come out. When two students whispered one day, wondering if he was drunk, Jim growled at them, "I'm not drunk, I'm handicapped, you ass!"
"Ass" was his blanket term for idiots and phonies. One day, we ran into a senior from Jim's hometown who enthusiastically invited Jim to swing by his fraternity ("Anytime, buddy!") in such a patronizing manner it was clear he never expected Jim to visit: he was an "ass." At that fall's memorable Big Game (Cal 17, Stanford 11 ), a guy sat near us vomiting gin fizzes into a paper bag: he merited an "ass." Flighty females, pompous teachers, guys pulling false fire alarms at 3 a.m. to empty the dorms - "asses" all.
Ultimately, I felt foolish for originally having wanted a different roommate. I couldn't have done better than Jim. We would talk late into the night about how he missed sports and musical instruments he could no longer play, and how he hoped to play some of them again. We talked about coursework and meeting girls, and about the extra challenges Jim alone faced in doing these things. Jim made me appreciate what I had.
Jim's schedule winnowed to one class as he fought to master his evolving disabilities, and he decided to leave Cal at the semester's end. I was sure he would be back soon, but he never returned. We lost touch for a decade, but I recently discovered that for six years Jim has run the Rockwell Project, a program that sends him throughout California to talk to teens about the perils of drinking and driving. He's still as ebullient and funny as I remember. And now he's teaching teens a variation on the lesson he taught me, a lesson which every freshman desiring worldliness should be so lucky to learn: how not to be an ass.