While Bruschke was developing the SCUDL program, he met high school student Cameron Ward, whom Bruschke describes as "this kid who kept hanging around while I was working with the debaters."
Cameron's life sounds like a modern-day Oliver Twist story.
He had trouble in school and, at one point, dropped out. His father's business failed and the family had no money. His younger brother has serious mental health problems. His mother died of breast cancer, leaving Cameron more isolated than ever. In fact, he was living in a friend's garage. Then Jon Bruschke stepped in.
"Think of a bad thing that could happen and it happened to Cameron," Bruschke said. "I think the debate team became his surrogate family and I became something of a surrogate father. although I prefer to think of myself as the cool, eccentric uncle."
Surprisingly, the kid that couldn't seem to catch a break flourished as a debater. In fact, he and teammate Josh Clark took on the Harvard team in 2004. and beat them.
"At commencement every year, they show a film featuring some of our outstanding students," Bruschke said. "It was so touching to see Cameron's father watching that film and see the pride on his face as his son's image was projected on that huge screen. Here is a kid nobody thought would graduate from high school, let alone college. Here is the kid that nobody predicted could be a success. And here is the kid who took on Harvard's championship debate team and won.
"This sounds a little strange but I think I was supposed to teach at Cal State Fullerton," said Bruschke. "I actually received my bachelor's and master's degrees here and then went on for my Ph.D at the University of Utah. After I graduated, I went to Baylor but left after two years. I had two job offers - one was as a lecturer at Cal State Fullerton. In truth, I was leaning toward the other job. It offered more security but then I started talking to another debater I knew from the debate circuit. She told me about SCUDL and that appealed to me a great deal."
