WORLD FOR THE DEAF GAMES : For the 1,800 Athletes From 28 Nations, It’s Not What Is Said but How It’s Said That Matters

Michele Malcolm of Birmingham High School in Van Nuys will feel the vibrations of the starting gun, rather than hear it, when she bolts from the starting blocks in her races.

David Hamilton, who played basketball at Pierce College, will feel vibrations of the whistle rather than hear it when a referee calls a foul.

Basketball Coach Hubert Anderson Jr. will wave towels at his team captain, 5-9 guard Craig Brown of Charlotte, N.C., rather than yell to get his player’s attention.

These differences aside, the World Games for the Deaf, July 10-20 in Los Angeles, will run much like the Olympic Games, and participants at all levels rankle at suggestions to the contrary.

“When we met with the officials, they asked us, ‘What do we do?’ and we assured them there was no difference,” said Carol Billone, World Games director and a deaf teacher on leave from the Marlton School for the Deaf in Los Angeles.

“Almost all the officials’ concern was, ‘How do we get their attention?’ ” Billone said. “We assured them that it may take a little longer to get the athletes’ attention, but that’s about it.

“These Games are run by the deaf, and they want to be treated like anyone else.”

About 1,800 athletes and officials from 28 nations are here for the Games, which were first held in Paris in 1924 and are sponsored by the American Assn. of the Deaf.

Said Carla Fujimoto, coordinator of officials for basketball: “A lot of these guys wear hearing aids and have some residual hearing.

“I don’t plan to use interpreters. Basketball is very visual. A lot of the foul signs explain themselves.

“We aren’t using any special things like lights. On the scoring table, just as in the Olympics, we’ll have a red flag suggesting which team called time out. There are banners which designate how many fouls a player has. Everything else is on the scoreboard.”

Andy Bakjian, supervisor of officials for track and field, said he hopes to put strobe lights--red for on your marks, white for get set and blue for go-- to the left of the starter in running events. The blue light will be attached to the starter’s gun and will flash when the gun is fired.

Bakjian, who officiated running events in the Olympics here last summer, said officials down the track will drop flags to indicate false starts.

Officials on the practice field will remind athletes about their events 30 minutes beforehand, and will be at every event to help communicate when necessary, Bakjian said.

Barry Roa, men’s volleyball coach, said his players will use eye and body cues, as do hearing players.

“If the ball is coming toward you, you’ll pivot and extend your arms in front of you to get in a better position,” said Roa, a former coach at Cal State Northridge.

“If it’s not coming toward you, you’ll open up toward (your teammate) to show him it’s his (ball) and to help him if the ball grazes off him.”

Roa said he can communicate just as effectively as with a hearing team because he uses gestures. “The advantage I have is that I can talk to them from the bench,” he said. “Although volleyball is so quick I can’t say more than a couple of words, I can communicate all across the gym, no matter how loud.

“Most of the time it’s the same gesture I used with a hearing team. I give each server an area to go to and I do that with a number. I use my notebook to shield it (from the other team).

“On offense, the setter tells each hitter which set they will receive. They set that up ahead of time. The setter is really like a quarterback. He runs the offense during the game.”

David Hamilton, 21, who was born deaf, said that when he played at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Ill., his coach promised to learn sign language but never did. Communication was difficult.

When Hamilton, who can hear some sounds but not words, transferred to Pierce, there were few problems. That was because Coach Jim Stephens used an interpreter at games and practices to relay in sign language instructions to the 6-3 point guard who ran the offense.

“The most difficult time was at the end of the half or the end of the game,” said Stephens, who has since become the coach of women’s basketball at Valley College.

“We’d try to make some kind of adjustment to hold the ball or to run a play for a particular player, but he couldn’t hear and, because of the intensity of the game, he couldn’t look over (at us to get our signals.) A lot of times I had to take him out at that time.”

At other times, Stephens said: “The game wasn’t so fast and you had time (to communicate). Stephens would signal by hand or stamp on the floor.

“A lot of times people felt I was going mad on the sidelines,” he said. “But that’s what I was doing. No matter what the situation was on the sidelines or no matter what the crowd noise, they could tell (by the vibrations on the floor) that we were trying to get their attention.”

During timeouts, a translator communicated Stephens’ messages.

“I’d be screaming my head off and I’d tell her to make sure he knows I’m mad,” he said. “And if I’d curse, she’d use it too.

“It kind of helped me,” said Stephens, who has coached for 24 years. “I didn’t have the interpreter for the whole practice, so I constantly had to adjust my practice schedule.

“I had to slow down my talking and had to pantomime so the kids could see it. In a sense, it helped the whole year because I had to go slow and didn’t take things for granted. I think everybody caught on.”

Stephens called Hamilton kind of a streaky shooter but a very good athlete who played good defense and rebounded well on a team that won the 1983-84 Metropolitan Conference championship.

“If he did not have the handicap he might be a Division I prospect,” Stephens said.

Malcolm, the Birmingham High athlete, lost her hearing due to an infection when she was 9 months old.

Last spring, the blonde, 5-5 athlete who hears only some vowel sounds, missed an announcement over the school’s public-address system. She failed to make a team bus, was late and was disqualified from the 100-meter hurdles in the Los Angeles City Section meet. She rebounded, however, and finished second in the City high jump.

After that, a student was assigned to tell Malcolm about all public-address announcements.

Malcolm, 17, needs that help because she competed in the long jump, shotput, high jump, 100-meter hurdles and 1600-meter relay, which often overlap.

At the World Games for the Deaf, she will compete in the heptathlon, which includes the high jump, long jump, shotput and javelin as well as the 100-meter hurdles, 200-meter dash and 800-meter run.

An accomplished lip reader who enjoys competing under the same conditions as hearing athletes, she said that there will be a special joy to working with deaf coaches and officials in the World Games for the Deaf.

“I won’t have to worry so much about getting what a hearing person is saying,” she said. “I’ll be so much more relaxed.”

THE SCHEDULE

Opening Ceremony--Wednesday, July 10, Drake Stadium, UCLA.

Badminton--July 13-17, Memorial Park, Santa Monica.

Basketball--July 11-19, Pepperdine University, Malibu.

Cycling--July 11, Ocean Ave., Santa Monica; 13, Griffith Park; 15, Emma Wood Park, Ventura; 17, Old Road and Rye Canyon, Valencia.

Marathon--July 14, Ocean Ave., Santa Monica.

Soccer--July 11-20, El Camino College, Torrance.

Shooting--July 12-13, 15-16, Prado Range, Corona.

Swimming--July 11-16, Pepperdine .

Table tennis--July 11-16, Santa Monica Community College.

Team handball--July 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, Santa Monica Community College.

Tennis--July 11-19, Pepperdine.

Track and field--July 11-17, Drake Stadium.

Volleyball--July 11-19, Palisades High School, final at Pepperdine.

Water polo--July 17-20, Pepperdine.

Closing Ceremony--July 20, Drake Stadium.