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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Allison Stewart. Right here in New York City, disability history has been made in the world of esports, and a new documentary captures it all. A group of New Yorkers have formed the world's first ever fully quadriplegic esports team. They are known as the Quad Gods. Using adapted controllers and even mouthpieces, the team competes in video game tournaments, but the games are about more than fun or even competition. The games are also a form of therapy, a way for these players to enhance their fine motor skills and build new neural pathways. It's also a place to find community among people who have also had to adjust to a new way of life. Documentarian Jess Jacklin follows three of these Quad Gods as they go about their daily lives, navigate New York City in wheelchairs, and compete in esports tournaments, hoping to prove to the world that quadriplegic players can be just as successful as anyone else. The HBO film is titled Quad Gods, and you can stream it now on Max. I am lucky to be joined right now in the studio by director Jess Jacklin and by one of the Quad Gods himself, subject of the film, Richard Jacobs. Jess, Richard, hey, welcome to All of It.

Richard Jacobs: How you doing? How you doing? Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. So nice to have you both in here.

Jess Jacklin: It's great to be here.

Kousha Navidar: Jess, how did you first get connected to the Quad Gods?

Jess Jacklin: Thanks so much. This is really exciting. I was dealing with some chronic pain of my own, actually, and I met this amazing neuroscientist, Dr. David Putrino. He runs a lab at Mount Sinai Hospital. I started talking to him about what I was going through, and he said, "Oh, I'm experimenting with some stuff in my lab using virtual reality and seeing if I can help manage pain through the neural pathways." I went down there and I met some of the early Quad Gods. They weren't the Quad Gods yet, but Blake Hunt, who you see in the film, he was doing some of this VR therapy, and we started talking, and he told me, "Well, there's a guy that has an idea for an esports team. We're thinking we might start gaming." I thought, "No way. I got to start hanging out with these guys and filming this. This is incredible." It just sort of organically took off from there.

Kousha Navidar: It originally wasn't necessarily, "Oh, I'm going to make a documentary about this." It was, "Oh, man, these are people that I really want to meet."

Jess Jacklin: Yes, totally.

Kousha Navidar: Richard, how about for you? What made you interested in being a part of the documentary?

Richard Jacobs: Me, personally, to be honest with you, it wasn't even actually about the documentary. I always been a gamer since I was young, so once I heard about it, the fact that they was trying to start up a esports gaming team, period, and it had something to do with video games and stuff like that, I was just automatically interested just off of that thought. The whole fact of it turning into a documentary and everything else, that actually came, I think, a little later because it was just like she's saying, it was just something that actually grew into. I don't think any of us expected it to turn out to be how it's turning out, as big as it's becoming.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. What did you expect it to be originally?

Richard Jacobs: I figured that because I was just coming off my injury and trying to get back into the swing of things as far as being out in the community, stuff like that. I was still dealing with a lot mentally. I was more looking for a place where I don't have to deal with the isolation no more, a place where I could find like-minded people that I don't have to feel like when I go into the room, I'm dealing with a stigma. That was, for me, more like kind of where I was going with it, but once I got down there and I started seeing some familiar faces and, like I said, the video game aspect came into it, which made me a lot more comfortable. I think that's when I knew for a fact, like, yes, this is where I'm supposed to be at.

Kousha Navidar: Well you talk in the film about how you ended up with a spinal cord injury. Could you share a little bit about what happened?

Richard Jacobs: I was a victim of attempted armed robbery. Well, it's not attempted. It actually went through. Like I was saying, I came home one night and there was two guys outside or whatever. One of them pulled the firearm, pulled the guns, telling me to give him everything that I had. I didn't have nothing to give him. Unfortunately, I guess he didn't like that too much.

I tried to turn and run, and that's when I heard the shot go off. I took a couple more steps, and I fell, and I couldn't get up. I tried to get up and run, but like I said, I couldn't move. The shot went in my left arm here. It went in. It ricocheted off of my shoulder and broke my shoulder and then went to my neck. Now it's my C7. C7 to T1 is where the bullet is lodged at. It's still in my neck, actually, to this day, because the doctors, they said that they was too afraid to go after it, so they didn't want to make no mistakes and try to go after it and make things worse.

Kousha Navidar: You say in the film that after the attack that rendered you quadriplegic, you felt like you had lost your significance. That's such a powerful statement. Can you unpackage that a little bit? What did you mean by that?

Richard Jacobs: Before my injury, like I said, I spent majority of my life on my feet. I'm 41 now. Thank God I made it. The injury happened in 2015. I spent majority of my life on my feet, very physical person, played all kinds of sports. I was in the gym working out all the time. I used to work for Dish Network doing satellite TV installation. After that, I was working for a little contract company that was tied to Con Edison. Everything that I was doing throughout my whole life was physical and that type of work.

Me being the oldest male in my immediate family, I'm a middle child from five kids, two older sisters and two younger brothers. My mother and father passed away when I was very young. By the time I was 16, they was both gone. Me being the oldest male in my immediate family, it kind of left me to feel like I had this responsibility to make sure I took care of them. I just felt like I had to do that part of whatever I had to do. I don't know, it's just so much going on right now in my mind. It's kind of slipping me right now. Sorry about that.

Kousha Navidar: Nothing to apologize for at all. It's such a difficult moment and then beyond, suffice it to say, but it feels like video games gave you some significance, a pathway back into fixing that feeling a little bit. Is that fair to say?

Richard Jacobs: Yes. Like I was saying, as far as the significance thing, right? Because of the fact that I was so physical and I was being in that position with that responsibility, once I got hurt and, to me mentally, I wasn't able to carry that part out no more. It was like I couldn't go to work and get that check and do all these things to take care of my family and help out the way I was doing it before. That's where the whole me feeling like I lost my significance came from because I went from being the provider and the breadwinner of the family. That's where my name came from. My gamer tag is Breadwinner.

I've been like that for years, way before I even started playing the game. It went from me being that breadwinner to now I'm so fragile in my mind to this point where I almost can't do anything without help. I can't even feed myself. I got people standing next to me holding a cup, helping me drink. That's a major change from somebody that's been such a physical being and carrying out these responsibilities to somebody now that, at that point in time, I felt I wasn't able to do any of that no more. All the people that was relying on me to do that was kind of left in a void, and that was mentally, it's a lot to deal with.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, it's an understatement. We're talking to Richard Jacobs, who's a member of the Quad God, one of the film subjects from the documentary by the same name, directed by Jess Jacklin. Quad Gods is streaming now on Max. It's about a pro esports team, happened to be quadriplegic, and their stories and who they are as people. Jess, I want to turn to you to talk about esports to tee it off, though. Richard, I want to know, what's the first video game you really got into way back in the day?

Richard Jacobs: Serious?

Kousha Navidar: Serious.

Richard Jacobs: The first game I was really ever into, Mario. Super Mario.

Kousha Navidar: Super Mario World?

Richard Jacobs: Yes, the first one.

Kousha Navidar: That's my answer, too.

Richard Jacobs: Regular Nintendo 8-bit.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, so, Mario.

Richard Jacobs: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, I got that.

Richard Jacobs: Regular Nintendo 8-bit. Had to blow the cartridge to get it to work.

Kousha Navidar: That's right. Match the A and B at the same time to run fast. I feel you. Jess, why do you think so many people get so much enjoyment from watching esports? It's a whole very lucrative industry.

Jess Jacklin: It really is. It's shocking. I was shocked. I learned in the process just how massive esports is. The thing that was unexpected, too, was just how social it is. I think there's this conception of, like, you know, "Oh, you're just going to be alone in your room on the computer, and you isolate." There's this world of connection that happens in video games and such a huge community.

Since the film has screened, there's been countless messages. Richard's phone was pinging at the beginning of the radio interview because it hasn't stopped. People have just been reaching out, "I want to join what you guys are doing. I saw it. I want to screen it for my friend. My son is quadriplegic, and can you game with him?" It's been just an amazing outpouring of community.

Kousha Navidar: It was amazing to see the ways in which the games were actually played in the documentary. I mean, I noticed that some of the Quad Gods, they use mouthpieces while they're gaming. They're controlling the game with their mouth. Can you say how that works a little bit?

Jess Jacklin: Yes, absolutely. There's a range of controllers that they're using. The adaptive technology is great, and I think we can still push and do a lot of innovation in terms of the design. Yes, two of the Quad Gods are using a quad stick, which is a mouth controller, essentially. They call it a sip and puff. You can blow into it or sip on it and control just like you could a regular controller. I think there are limitations and a lot of customization in the design of it to make sure you can do what you want to do.

Then there's a really cool Logitech adaptive controller that's essentially large buttons that you could put onto your wheelchair, like AB, X, and sort of, if you can tap or hit different parts of it, it works like a regular controller would. That's some of the really cool stuff that's happening. Then I think, Richard, you game with just sort of a different, it's a little more sensitive, your controls, right, so that you can hit the-- you can talk about it.

Richard Jacobs: Yes, I use the Astro C40. It's a controller made by Logitech. Basically, it's a controller that you could customize, and you can make it custom to the sensitivity of your fingers. You could swap out the analog sticks and you can make them taller. If your fingers are not strong enough to reach down to the button, you can bring the button up to your finger. There's a lot of different little customizations. They got the paddles on the back, so if you can't use the top buttons, you could probably just press the paddles on the back. It's a little heavier than most controllers, so it gives my hands a chance to understand, because if it's too light for me, it'll slip out my hands if it's too slippery, if I don't have enough grip.

All of those little things make a big difference when it comes to trying to get back in, especially depending on what controller you using. She was talking about with the Microsoft adaptable controller is basically just like the controller we was talking about, the regular Nintendo controller with the two buttons, but just think about that on a grand, large scale, like the size of a VCR. It's big like that because you might not be able to press the buttons, but if you could just use your wrist to mash it, or they have extra peripheral buttons that you could connect with it, and you could use those buttons to put anywhere you need them to be.

Kousha Navidar: Are you adapting the controller based on the game that you're playing?Is Rocket League a different setup for you than Fortnite?

Richard Jacobs: Yes, definitely, because with Rocket League, it might have a different combination of buttons that you might need to press. It depends on the type of person that you are as far as what games you like to play and what your limitations might be. For instance, with the quad stick, my teammate, Sergio, he used the quad stick. That's for people that's paralyzed from the neck down. With that, he don't have to use none of those buttons, peripherals, or nothing like that. He's just using the quad stick. It's just, like she was saying, sip and puff. It got a couple of holes on it, just depending on what button he want to press. As far as if you using the controller with the peripheries, if you want to put a button under your elbow, maybe you can only use your arm to move your elbow a little bit.

Kousha Navidar: You can do that.

Richard Jacobs: That's possible.

Kousha Navidar: Interesting.

Richard Jacobs: They also have, like, you see my headrest? I could put buttons on that.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, so it's like whatever you have, it adapts and meets you where you are.

Richard Jacobs: Exactly.

Kousha Navidar: Jess, what's something that you've learned about disability and accessibility here in the city, in New York City that you've learned over the course of making this film, because that was a big part of the documentary?

Jess Jacklin: Yes, it was. It was super eye-opening. I definitely feel that New York is one of the more accessible places in the US. Having traveled with the Quad Gods outside, I mean, we did a trip to Los Angeles. I was shocked, and there's a scene where one of the Quad Gods goes to New Jersey, and there's just nowhere to go, and he just ends up on a highway.

We have such a long way to go in terms of accessibility. Just spending a single day with any one of these characters you're aware of, wow. If there's an elevator broken, okay, you gotta go to the next stop. There aren't actually as many accessible stations as we might realize that, think that there are. Yes, I think I learned a lot about that.

I also really learned a lot about just kind of the individual experience of disability, that it's really not one-size-fits-all, and you can't assume that somebody's journey is about recovery or about getting better. It might just be celebrating who you are and seeing it as a part of your life experience. That was something that I really observed a lot in these individuals, was that they just don't want the same thing or they don't think about themselves as same.

Richard Jacobs: Is that part of what you're trying to challenge with this documentary, that one-size-fits-all approach?

Jess Jacklin: Exactly. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Richard, I'm looking at the clock. We got about a minute and a half left. I'm wondering, for you, I imagine, there's this idea of neuroplasticity in the documentary, that repeated motions can actually help rewire the brain. Number one, does playing video games feel like a form of therapy to you when it comes to your motor skills? Two, for people that are listening right now, your phone's blowing up while we're talking, somebody who might be going through a life-changing injury or illness themselves, what advice would you have? That's a two-parter for you there.

Richard Jacobs: Definitely, for the first part is definitely therapeutic and some type of physical therapy. I remember when we first started where I could hardly press the buttons. My hands wasn't strong enough yet, but over time, repetition, doing it, keep trying, keep trying, it forced my hands and muscle memory to start working again. My fingers now, even this, what I could do right now, I couldn't do before.

Kousha Navidar: Does that play into the advice that you would give to folks?

Richard Jacobs: It definitely do. For any advice that I would have to give anybody out there that's dealing with anything right now, I would just let them know that the hard times don't last forever. You're going to get through. Everybody go through dark clouds, but if you keep moving forward, you're going to reach the silver lining.

Kousha Navidar: Richard Jacobs is a member of Quad God. It's a professional esports team, also one of the film's subjects of the documentary Quad Gods, which is streaming now on Max. The director of that documentary, Jess Jacklin. Jess, Richard, thanks for your work. Thanks for coming down. Really appreciate it.

Richard Jacobs: Thank you so much.

Jess Jacklin: Thank you so much.

Kousha Navidar: That's our show for today, but coming up on tomorrow's show, we'll talk about how to plan a group trip with friends. We'll be joined by Nick Layton, host of the etiquette podcast, Were You Raised by Wolves? He'll talk about how to travel with friends and still be friends with them after the trip. Plus, we'll get your calls and experiences. What a great show we had today. Thanks for hanging out with us. Have a great day. We'll see you here tomorrow. Peace.

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