Springer an advocate for kids who stutter
Hi, I’m Deana Sumanac-Johnson. I’m a CBC News Network weekend host and an education reporter.
To most Blue Jays fans, George Springer is best known for “Springer dingers” — a reliable force at bat and a mentor to younger players.
But to kids and adults who stutter, including an estimated 400,000 Canadians, Springer is something else: a person just like them, whose success and self-acceptance offers hope.
Connecticut-born Springer called his childhood stutter “extremely isolating” and “debilitating.” In this ESPN piece, you can see a young Springer stuttering as he opens Christmas gifts in a family video.
Springer still stutters in adulthood, but it’s tough to notice in his frequent media interviews and news conferences. He’s had coaching and therapy, but also credits the sheer confidence and joy he has when playing baseball — the ability to be seen and loved as his true, authentic self — with lessening the effects of the speech condition.
Springer has since become the spokesperson for SAY: the U.S.-based Stuttering Association for the Young. He also takes time to meet with kids who stutter.
One young fan living in California has so far met him twice, most recently in Toronto, by holding up a sign that said “George, I stutter too.”
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