Hearing-Impaired Duo Ride Wave of Good Humor : College water polo: Stehle, Prewitt cope with deafness and contribute to ninth-ranked Ventura’s success.

VENTURA — They sit by the sparkling pool at Ventura College, where they do some of their best work away from the classroom, and joke about something others in their position might not find so amusing.

Water polo players Chris Stehle and Chris Prewitt learned long ago that humor is a weapon against their impairment--deafness--and a salve for the insensitivity of others.

“A few days ago, we were coming back from a match and (assistant) Coach (Ned) Washburn was asking one of our players a question and the player kept saying, ‘What?’ ” Stehle said. “So I asked him if he wanted my hearing aid.”

Everyone in the bus, Stehle and Prewitt said, broke out laughing. Others also laughed last year when Prewitt told them how doctors finally found out why he can’t hear. They chuckled, not out of malice, but because Prewitt talks about it humorously.

Prewitt says he and two friends were horsing around with a jump rope in high school last year when one of the wooden handles flew up, smacking him on one of his front teeth. There was no damage to the tooth, but Prewitt lost his equilibrium after the mishap.

“The doctors never really knew how I lost my hearing,” Prewitt said. “I spent the night in the hospital because the neurologist didn’t know what it was. Then they did a CAT scan and found out that the cochlea was malformed in both ears. I was home from school for a couple of weeks.”

As Prewitt repeats the story, Stehle smiles and shakes his head. “I cracked up the first time I heard it,” he said.

Their deafness, however, is not the only thing they share.

Both are blond and roughly the same size, live about a block from each other in Ventura, attended the same elementary school that offered therapy for hearing-impaired children and played water polo at Buena High, although they were not on the varsity squad at the same time. And now they are teammates with the Pirates (19-7-1), who are ranked ninth in the state.

But their experience and abilities are different.

Stehle, 19, is a 5-foot-10, 155-pound sophomore driver who has played in international matches. In August, he helped the United States win the gold medal at the World Games for the Deaf in Sofia, Bulgaria, scoring eight goals in four matches. He plays the same position at Ventura, where he alternates between starting and coming off the bench, and has scored 10 goals this season.

“He probably has the quickest shot on the team,” said Larry Baratte, Ventura’s first-year coach. “He is a very good offensive player, but sometimes I take him out in defensive situations.”

Prewitt, 17, is 5-10 and 150 pounds. He is a freshman driver in a backup role, but one whose playing time could increase significantly next season. Despite his limited appearances, Prewitt has scored twice.

“He has good speed and pretty good ballhandling skills,” Baratte said. “He is probably my favorite kid because of his work ethics.”

That is something both players had to develop away from sports because of their hearing loss.

Stehle’s condition was caused by spinal meningitis when he was 1 and left him with no hearing in his left ear and only about 50% in the right. He learned to talk with the help of a speech therapist at Loma Vista Elementary, a regular school also attended by Prewitt, and wore a hearing aid for several years. But he discarded it because he didn’t like the background noises it picked up.

Lately, however, Stehle has been taking sign-language classes because he has mysteriously lost hearing by five decibels in his right ear since last year. He is bracing himself for the possibility of complete hearing loss. But even with that prospect, Stehle remains upbeat and is coping much the way he did growing up.

“I would just do everything other kids did,” Stehle said. “I didn’t think of my hearing as a handicap. . . . There were times when I was a kid that it was tough to deal with. But I didn’t let it bother me. I kept working and working and this is where it got me.”

Prewitt, who reads lips, has about 50% hearing in both ears and wears hearing aids. He said his hearing loss was first noticed by a preschool teacher in Italy, where his father was stationed in the Navy.

The teacher was concerned about Prewitt’s speech patterns. Until the incident with the jump rope, nobody suspected that malformed cochleas--a spiral-shaped part of the internal ear that contains the auditory nerve endings--were the culprits.

The two players say they love water sports--swimming, surfing, water skiing--and jumped at the opportunity to play water polo at Buena. Stehle was one class ahead of Prewitt, and they never played together in high school. When Stehle was on the varsity, Prewitt played on the junior varsity and moved up the following season.

“We just saw each other around school,” Prewitt said. “We didn’t really know each other.”

Their impairment hasn’t caused problems in matches, even though the sport relies heavily on whistle calls by the referees. Both players say they combat the situation by paying closer attention to the officials and their teammates.

“You just have to learn to adapt,” Stehle said. “I rely on my instincts and what the ref is doing. I don’t trust the players on the other team. They know we can’t hear and might try to act like the ref blew the whistle or something. They might try to put a fast one past us.”

Even if they did, Stehle says he wouldn’t get too upset about it.

“We are not big,” Stehle said, laughing. “We can’t beat them up, so we might as well joke about it.”