Former MBHS track coach helps children with disabilities get mobile: Greg Echols and AMBUCS help provide children with custom ‘trykes’

A little less than five years ago, the Birmingham chapter of AMBUCS was teetering on the brink of insolvency when Greg Echols, the retired Mountain Brook High School track coach, took over the service organization that brings mobility to disabled children.

“To say we were broke is an understatement,” Echols said recently. “The first six months, I was just trying to get it rebuilt.”

After taking the helm in February 2016, Echols and a part-time grant writer, Jacquelyn Hodges-Marshall, have helped rebuild the organization’s economic foundation. Since 2016, Birmingham AMBUCS has donated some 200 custom-fitted tricycles (AMBUCS calls them “trykes”) that allow children with disabilities to play like other children while building their muscles.

AMBUCS was founded in Birmingham in 1922 as the American Business Council, eventually adapting the acronym AMBUCS as it morphed into a national service organization based in North Carolina.

In the early 1990s, one of the chapters started fabricating and giving away the trykes. The national organization adapted it as one of AMBUCS’ ongoing service projects in 1995. The Birmingham chapter focuses solely on the tryke project.

Echols, who moved to Mountain Brook when he was in the second grade, is a third-generation educator in the city, going back to when his grandmother taught in a two-room school in Crestline. He and his wife, Gin, moved near Irondale last year after the youngest in their blended family graduated from college.

After retiring as the Spartans’ head track coach at the end of the 2015 school year, Echols was looking for his next step. Soon, Dave Upton suggested Echols take over the Birmingham AMBUCS chapter Upton founded in 2007 before moving on to work on projects building affordable housing.

The idea appealed. Echols’ now-adult son, Scott, had to have his left leg amputated at the knee after a lawnmower accident when he was four.

“He never rode a bike,” Echols said. “So this was something I could do to give back. That was my biggest thing leaving coaching, struggling with the idea that I’m supposed to make a difference in kids’ lives.”

Birmingham AMBUCS has given away more than 1,000 custom three-wheelers in the last 22 years, including several now used at Children’s Hospital. Under Echols, the local chapter has been working with physical therapists in several public schools to provide tricycles for in-school use.

Building on a relationship with Shelby County schools predating Echols – the Birmingham chapter has placed 100 tricycles in schools and homes there – the service organization focused last year on expanding into schools in other over-the-mountain communities.

AMBUCS has 18-20 basic models of three-wheelers, which are adapted for the individual rider’s needs based on a “prescription” written by a physical therapist. It might include back braces to secure the rider, pedal levers to help locomotion and rear (parent-assisted) steering. Arm pedals are used when a child or teen lacks lower-body strength.

The tricycles, which weigh 50-90 pounds, are available in five different heights, based on tire size, to accommodate children as they grow. Locally, they are assembled and customized at no charge by workers at Bayliss Machine and Welding Co.

Fittings for individual clients at the AMBUCS office on U.S. 31 in Vestavia Hills double as celebrations, complete with balloons and snacks. The family, volunteer therapists, members of the Junior League (which partnered with Birmingham AMBUCS a few years ago) and Echols are present as a physical therapist ensures that the child fits perfectly into the vehicle.

The exercise can be transformative. One client walked for the first time at age 13 due to the leg strength she built after riding her tryke for several years. A mother and her non-verbal child are able to bond during daily three-mile jaunts with the daughter riding and mother running.

For most children, riding bikes is fun and provides a sense of independence. AMBUCS’ custom tricycles provide that feeling of freedom, even if the rider needs an assist from a parent steering from behind.

“All those kids see is wide-open spaces in front of them,” Echols said. “In their world, they are riding a bike just like all the other kids in their neighborhood. That’s the emotional and psychological part of it. The physical part is they’re getting exercise.”

As a coach, Echols’ junior high and high school track and field teams won 68 state championships, including 46 at the high school. His teams competed in another 19 state finals.

Echols said he knew little about AMBUCS, much less its floundering condition, when Upton suggested he become its executive director. The coach was concerned he wasn’t qualified to become a turnaround specialist.

“I found out I was more qualified than I thought,” said Echols, who has since returned to coaching track as a part-time assistant. “As head coach of a relatively big program and running big meets, I’d been in leadership. I’d done fundraising.”

The building where AMBUCS was operating was hemorrhaging money, so his first step was to clear out the space and recruit a couple of nonprofits as tenants. Between fixing a few bikes in storage and developing some Yuletide donors, AMBUCS managed to give away 24 trykes in 2016.

Grants and partnerships with organizations like the Junior League of Birmingham helped lead to AMBUCS distributing 42 tricycles the next year, 54 the year after that and 79 last year.

“We went from waiting three or four months to get a tryke because we didn’t have funding to where we’re now looking for kids,” Echols said.

The next long-term goal is to raise enough money and identify clients to give away 100 more tricycles before Birmingham hosts the AMBUCS national convention that will celebrate its centennial.

“The ultimate goal for all of us is to get as many kids as healthy as they possibly can be,” he said.

Echols said he feels “blessed” to be able to make such a difference in the lives of disabled children and their families. “It’s really life-changing for them.”