From USA Today:TOWSON, Md. — In a Towson University football team meeting room filled with more than 60 players and a dozen coaches, linebacker Ryan Bonheyo (pictured)makes a sign for the word "slow," then points at the whole bunch.
Everybody laughs; Bonheyo just grins.
His coaches say he has to toughen up, which doesn't make him different from any other wide-eyed freshman player. Except that Bonheyo was born deaf.
Last year, 76 deaf and hard-of-hearing students played NCAA and NAIA sports, according to Deaf Digest Magazine, and 39 played in Division I. That does not account for those who do not wish to be identified. Those figures have steadily risen since the 1973 Rehabilitation Act mandated interpreters for deaf and hard-of-hearing students at universities and provided against discrimination based on disability.
For players such as Bonheyo, the challenge is to compete at the highest level on an inherently unlevel playing field. It's a journey that began this fall for Ryan and continues for Emily Cressy, a soccer player at Kansas, and Purdue's Felicia Schroeder, who helped the U.S. women's soccer team win a gold medal Monday in the Deaflympics in Taiwan.
For some, the allure of competition trumps the fear of disappointment. "This is the biggest challenge of my life," Bonheyo says. "I know I can do it. "
As Towson defensive coordinator Matt Hachmann runs through hand signals and quizzes players during a preseason meeting, interpreter Brian Tingley stands to his side, relaying a flurry of signals to Ryan Bonheyo. The only freshman in the room darts his eyes among Hachmann, Tingley and a dry-erase board filled with X's and O's.
Hachmann insists he couldn't care less whether Bonheyo is deaf, but the first-year coach has made accommodations. There are the little things, such as clapping instead of blowing a whistle when initiating drills. And there are the big changes, including expanding an already extensive language of defensive hand signals. It's all worth it, coaches say, because of the contribution they expect from the 6-2, 215-pound linebacker after he redshirts this fall.
"There's a lot of pressure," Bonheyo, 18, said through Tingley. "I have to have a chip on my shoulder and work harder than anybody else."
Towson was the only program to offer a scholarship to Bonheyo, who grew up less than 50 miles away in Frederick, Md. That's where Bonheyo put himself on the map, leading the Maryland School for the Deaf to four consecutive National Deaf Prep Championships while playing running back and linebacker.
"A lot of college coaches weren't willing to take what they felt was a chance on him," Towson first-year head coach Rob Ambrose said. "A lot of coaches were just afraid."
Before Bonheyo arrived on campus, the athletic department hired Tingley as a full-time employee to accompany Bonheyo in practices, meetings, team meals and, eventually, games. Tingley, who is hard of hearing, is a former football player and assistant at Gallaudet, a university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Washington.
He said many in the deaf community criticized Bonheyo for not choosing Gallaudet, where many of the country's top deaf athletes play at the Division III level. Both of Bonheyo's parents also are alumni.
"I didn't consider them," Bonheyo said via Facebook instant messaging. "I feel that I'm good enough to compete at the Division I level. The main reason I chose Towson was because it's a Division I school."
But the leap comes with challenges, including communicating when Tingley is not around. To adapt, teammates hand Bonheyo cellphones with messages written in a text message draft. To get his attention, they knock on a table Bonheyo is resting on or pat his helmet.
Freshman wide receiver B.J. Greeney, 18, spent the summer rooming with Bonheyo while they took classes. "It seems like he's used to communicating and being around hearing people," Greeney said. "I don't think he ever gets frustrated."
In the opening weeks of practice, coaches resorted to wild, curse-filled outbursts to point out mistakes. Bonheyo says that's one thing he's trying hard to avoid.
"He'll get no preferential treatment," Ambrose said. "You walk a fine line between accommodating him and treating him like a football player. Our opponents ain't cuttin' him any slack. And the world sure ain't cuttin' him any slack."
About a year ago, the Kansas women's soccer team gathered to sing Happy Birthday for a player, adding a "cha-cha-cha" between each verse. Forward Emily Cressy, who has been deaf since she was 14, began shouting the refrain offbeat.
"She was so far off on the cha-cha-cha that everybody was already on the next verse when she did it," Kansas coach Mark Francis said. "It was hilarious. Everybody was cracking up. She can laugh about being deaf because she doesn't take herself too seriously."
Cressy, 20, from Ventura, Calif., had eight goals and three assists last year as a redshirt freshman while inspiring coaches and teammates with what Francis calls an extraordinary sense of humor. But Cressy hasn't always been able to laugh about being deaf.
Born hard of hearing, she woke up one morning during her sophomore year of high school and realized she had lost what little hearing she had. Cressy stayed out of school for weeks because she was embarrassed about needing an interpreter during classes. When she returned, soccer kept her sane, Cressy said.
"It's my life," Cressy said. "It makes me feel like I'm not deaf when I'm on the field. Like I'm just a normal human being."
Cressy once could hear herself speak, which gives her the ability and confidence to respond verbally once the words of others are translated by an interpreter. Friends say her ability to speak coherently has faded as she has grown less familiar with her voice but she still can be understood.
In a phone interview using an interpreter, Cressy described a rough transition as a freshman at Kansas. In classrooms that often held more than 100 students, Cressy grew embarrassed and found it hard to pay attention as dozens of eyes searched for the student who needed the interpreter at the front of the room. Her grades began to slip and her attitude grew worse when she was not allowed to play or travel with the team. "I hated it," she said. "I used to hide behind people in the back of the room so no one could see me."
Estelle Johnson, a senior, said Cressy's struggles were made worse by a communication gap.
"It took her awhile to feel comfortable," Johnson said. "She never really opened up to the team; it was just difficult for her to talk to us. When we would just casually talk as a team, she wasn't able to get to know us. She didn't realize that we were all on the same boat with our own problems."
When Cressy began considering a transfer, coaches and teammates begged her to stay. She began one-on-one tutoring outside of class. Last year, coaches felt she had improved enough on and off the field to start her at forward in 21 of 23 games. "She's grown up," Francis said. "The switch has kind of come on with Emily, and the other girls notice that."
Francis said he expected his leading returning goal scorer to emerge as a leader, but Cressy said she's just happy to be playing.
"I don't look at myself as a leader or anything like that," she said. "I'm just a member of the team, just like everybody else."
After an illustrious yet turbulent college career that included a transfer from one school and a conference championship at another, Felicia Schroeder wasn't done proving herself.
She went out for the U.S. Deaflympic team and earned a spot as a midfielder, only to find that because the U.S. Olympic Committee does not sponsor the games, each player had to raise $5,000 for the trip to Taiwan.
"A bunch of people who would have gone to Taiwan dropped out because of the money," Schroeder, 22, said in an interview via text message. "I couldn't let that stop me."
In 10 days, Schroeder, who was born deaf, raised the money by asking friends, family and companies in Cincinnati, her hometown, for donations.
Her efforts paid off. During Monday's final, she scored two goals in a 4-0 win against Germany, earning a gold medal. That hardware complements the silver Big Ten championship ring she earned in her first season with Purdue in 2007. She plans to graduate in May.
But her soccer career didn't begin so smoothly. After choosing South Carolina out of high school, Schroeder said the interpreters she was promised during her recruitment never arrived, despite repeated requests made to coaches. South Carolina women's soccer coach Shelley Smith declined to be interviewed for this story.
Providing interpreters for university activities including classes and athletics is required by law. Karen Pettus, director of the school's Office of Disability Services responsible for coordinating assistance in the classroom, said she wished Schroeder had come to her early on.
"When you're a young athlete, the coach is such a huge part of your life that when you ask a coach something and they don't respond you're not going to go behind their back," Pettus said. "Had they requested an interpreter, we would've done our best."
On the field, Schroeder played sparingly and spectacularly during her freshman and sophomore seasons. As a sophomore she led the team with seven goals and 16 points.
"I kept getting letters from the girls on the team saying, 'We know you're the best forward, just stick it out,' " Schroeder said. "I just couldn't do anything to please the coaches."
In the last road game of the 2006 season, Schroeder was pulled 3:44 into the first overtime and benched until the game ended. The explanation?
"They said I couldn't hear their instructions," Schroeder said. After the game, she stormed off the field and hammered out a text message to her parents: "I'M TRANSFERRING."
That decision led her to Purdue, for whom she scored 13 goals in two seasons, and later to Taiwan, where she scored a women's Deaflympic-best eight goals in four games.
What's next? Schroeder said pro soccer at home or even abroad, where she would face a new kind of language barrier. But crashing down walls is what Schroeder lives for.
"With doubts because of my deafness, I just feel that I have to keep proving people wrong," Schroeder said. "I can't let anything get in my way."
