More Than Lip Service : University Program Makes Sure Deaf Students Are Not Impaired in Athletic Competition

Imagine you live in China. Your family and your neighbors speak Mandarin, but you speak English. Fifty miles away there is a school where others speak English; it is the only place where you can effortlessly communicate your complex thoughts, dreams and emotions for a few hours each day.

To most, this kind of isolation would be unbearable, but for the more than 90 students who come from all corners of Orange County to attend the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program at University High, it is a situation endured with proud resolve. With the help of interpreters, the D/HH students participate in every academic and extracurricular activity the school offers.

Many students are drawn to athletics--25 play sports. They say that fields and pools are places where the language barriers between the hearing and the deaf are wiped away. No matter what mode of communication one uses off the field--English, Spanish or American Sign--the language of sports is universal.

On a recent afternoon at the University pool, Christy Kim hung on the lane line. Disappointment crossed her tiny face, which peeked from under a water polo cap. As she watched her teammates on the girls’ water polo team, Kim turned again and again to the interpreter sitting poolside next to the coach, waiting for the sign.

At this moment, Kim was not wondering why she and her older sister, Jayne, were born deaf, or even how she later would tell her hearing friends about the game. At this moment, there was only one thing she wanted to know, and she signed the question animatedly to the interpreter, slapping the water in hyperbolic despair.

“When can I play?”

They Are Not Broken

Hildegard VanSickle was baby-sitting her 9-month-old granddaughter, Allison Rice, one day and dropped a large pot of potatoes near her. The toddler never flinched.

Rice’s mother, Sylvia VanSickle, returned home and Hildegard took her into the kitchen.

“Watch this,” she said, crashing the lids of two metal pans together to make a loud noise.

Again, Rice didn’t seem to notice.

“Another child, you would be peeling off the ceiling,” Sylvia said.

Sylvia took Rice to the John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles, where audiologists placed her in a room and pumped in different tones, but Rice showed no reaction.

The clinic, which offers its services free of charge, determined Rice was deaf. VanSickle was overwhelmed.

“I knew she would never hear beautiful music or the whispers of someone that loved her,” she said. “She would never hear the wind or the ocean.”

But VanSickle quickly realized that Rice does not feel deprived of those sounds.

“Sometimes, when we discuss it, it’s like she doesn’t relate to it at all, she [says], ‘Well, since I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t miss it,’ ” said VanSickle, who moved from Torrance last year and took a job as a payroll manager for a company in Irvine so that Rice could be closer to University.

Most of the D/HH students do not think deafness is a problem. That is why they asked the program’s principal, Jon Levy, to remove the term “hearing impaired” from the program’s title last year. Impaired, they argued, means broken and they are not broken, just deaf.

The only difference for the deaf students is that they speak a different language.

Along one stretch of grass on the University athletic complex one sunny afternoon, cross-country runners walked like ducks to stretch their calves. “Toes out!” yelled one assistant coach. Nearby, an interpreter raised both arms in front of her, fingers stretched perpendicular to her arms. In the middle of the pack, Rice looked up and nodded, making sharper angles with her feet.

This season is going much better for Rice than last, when she pushed herself so hard trying to keep up with the varsity runners that she injured her leg and foot.

“I always overdo things and especially being a freshman, you’re excited about everything,” she said through an interpreter.

This season, Rice has moved into the No. 3 spot on the team and was selected by coaches as the female runner of the week after helping University defeat Costa Mesa. “She’ll push herself and push herself and sometimes we have to say, ‘Allison, this is a recovery run.’ She wants to run hard, hard, hard, hard, hard,” said Coach Janice Rolfing.

An interpreter attends all Rice’s cross-country practices and races. At the beginning of the race, the interpreter stands next to the starter and gives Rice a signal when the gun goes off--a situation that puts Rice at a disadvantage.

“The interpreter puts her hand down, but I usually watch the other kids and go when they go and then try to catch up,” she said.

But Rice savors this challenge.

“Sports gave me a goal to achieve,” she said.

Football Helped Me Mature

Over on the football field, the freshman team faced fourth down against Laguna Beach. On the sideline, Matt Kirby watched an interpreter’s hand raised above the helmets in an upside down peace sign--the sign for punt. He ran on the field.

For Kirby to play football takes significantly more determination than most University students have--not because he is hard of hearing, but because it means his days are often more than 12 hours long.

The school bus arrives at his San Clemente house at 5:55 a.m. By the time he arrives home via a program-sponsored taxi ride for athletes, it is usually long after dark.

Because deafness is a low-incidence disorder--less than 1% of the population is hard of hearing--it makes more sense, economically, for Orange County’s 27 school districts to pool their money earmarked for deaf education and provide services at a central location, Levy said. In addition to the 90 students at University, the program includes 52 students at Irvine’s Deerfield elementary school and Venado middle school. The program’s staff includes 17 interpreters, three speech therapists and an audiologist.

It costs about $28,000 to provide services for one D/HH student at University per year, compared to about $5,000 for a general education student, according to Larry Belkin, director of special education for the Orange County Department of Education.

Although transportation is included in the program’s $2.5-million budget, the central location makes for a long commute for many. But Kirby doesn’t mind; he says football has given him another way to express himself, to let out his aggressions.

“Football has helped me mature. I’m afraid that if I get in trouble, I would lose football,” he said.

In his first game, Kirby played offense, defense and special teams without a break in a loss to Irvine. When Charlotte, Kirby’s mother, picked up her son, he broke down in tears from exhaustion.

“I have never seen that kind of emotion in him,” she said.

Kirby, who is 6 feet tall with blond hair, also likes to surf and skateboard near his home. He can’t wear his hearing aids on the football field because they fall out, so when he plays right tackle, he reads the quarterback’s lips to get the plays.

Kirby used to get confused between the words “toss” and “pass” because they are so similar in lip reading, so the team developed a system, touching the ear to signify one and the nose to signify the other. When Kirby plays defensive end, he watches the coach’s signals.

Deaf athletes occupy a unique position in football history--at Gallaudet University, a school for the hard of hearing in Washington, D.C., they invented the huddle in 1895 to prevent opposing teams from watching them sign the play.

At University, a total of seven D/HH students play on the freshman, junior varsity and varsity football teams, including Jeff Albinio, a sophomore who is a starting wide receiver and backup quarterback for the junior varsity. When Albinio plays quarterback, another player calls the plays in the huddle while Albinio gets the signal from an interpreter on the sideline and Albinio makes sounds for the snap count.

Two interpreters work with each football team--one for offense and one for defense. Kim Giambalvo interprets for the freshmen team and she has had an education in the sport.

“Sometimes I say [to the coach], ‘I don’t understand that,’ and they say, ‘That’s OK, he’ll get it,’ and I say, ‘No, if I don’t get it, he won’t get it.’ ”

Some of the interpreters learned sign language as their first language because their parents were deaf. Others learned it in college. Most develop a close bond with the students.

Giambalvo stood on the sidelines, recently, with her back to a freshman game, interpreting for middle linebacker Chris Hearn. After a screen play crashed through the sidelines and almost wiped her out, she was rebuked by a coach for not paying attention.

“That’s OK, I’ll block for you,” offered one player.

Hearn gave his teammate a high-five in thanks.

It Caught Me Off Guard

Rock music blared in the gym at a recent football pep rally: “Whomp! There it is!”

Cheerleaders shook the floor as they stomped in unison and 2,000 students yelled and milled about the decorated gym.

For the D/HH students who were interspersed throughout the crowd, the volume may have been less jolting, but the excitement was still full blast. Many deaf and hard of hearing students can feel the vibrations from loud music or from the roar of a crowd.

A wave rounded the gym and Rice popped out of her seat right on cue. Kim joined the sophomore class council in a dance--she didn’t miss a beat.

Mike Reid coaches Kim in water polo.

“Christy is just a kick,” he said. “She is a lot of fun. She works incredibly hard every day. There’s no doubt about it--she wants to learn and she wants to play.”

The presence of such a large deaf population makes University a unique place to watch a sporting event. It can be startling to those who aren’t aware of the program.

“When I first came down here . . . [the former coach] mentioned something about an interpreter and I was thinking about a [foreign] language interpreter and he said, ‘No, it’s a sign language interpreter,’ and it caught me off guard. I hadn’t really had much contact with deaf students at all,” Reid said.

“For the first couple weeks, I found myself speaking slower and then I found that [the interpreter] was waiting for me and I realized that she can sign faster than I can talk.”

Reid is gradually learning sign language. At swim practice, he can tell the deaf athletes what sets to do without any help.

Many of the hearing students likewise proudly displayed their knowledge of sign language.

Jillian Dion, a sophomore on the girls’ junior varsity basketball team, stood comparing onion skin slides under a microscope with Rice recently in science class. Dion, who can hear, is taking the one-year sign language class the school offers, even though many colleges don’t count it as a foreign language credit.

“There are just so many really neat kids who are deaf and I like being able to communicate with them,” Dion said.

Breann Shaner, a cheerleader, has been Christy Kim’s best friend since they met last year as freshmen, even though Shaner can hear and Kim can’t.

“I saw her in science class and I didn’t really know anyone. She turned around and smiled and we started writing notes and that’s how it started,” Shaner said.

Shaner has become fluent in sign language and the two are inseparable. Their conversations often become so animated that they begin signing over each other before dissolving into giggles.

Kim has little trouble getting her point across to people who don’t know sign language.

“Sometimes it’s hard to go through an interpreter when you want to talk to someone,” Kim said. “Sometimes, if I am without an interpreter, I will write it down for them if I want to meet them. I feel confident doing that.”

Reid no longer talks more slowly to the deaf athletes.

“I began to realize, hey, they don’t have a problem with being deaf, so why should I?” he said.

Deaf Culture

The bell rang to signal the end of a recent school day and Levy walked slowly along the line of buses, encouraging the program’s students to board. They stood in clusters, signing happily to each other.

“It’s Thursday, you’ll see each other again tomorrow,” Levy signed to them. “It’s time to go home now.”

They grudgingly boarded the buses but rolled down the windows and continued signing to each other until the buses pulled out, taking them away from this communication haven.

The large deaf population at the school provides a sense of community that many deaf and hard-of-hearing students have never enjoyed before.

Laura Rashap is a senior swimmer who hopes to compete for the United States at the 1997 World Games for the Deaf in Copenhagen.

“I’ve always been with hearing people all my life. To be with the deaf athletes and people, I feel very connected because that’s who I am,” she said.

Rory Osbrink, a senior pitcher, plans to play for Gallaudet next year, even though he is being recruited by other colleges.

Osbrink also plays basketball on a D/HH program team, which is coached by his father, Bob, who played basketball at USC from 1966-68. The school’s D/HH team is the two-time defending champion of the Southern California deaf basketball tournament and the team has developed such a tight bond that Bob sometimes feels excluded.

“I become deaf impaired,” he said with a laugh.

When Osbrink was 3, his parents brought him to the hospital with flu symptoms and doctors performed a spinal tap. He had spinal meningitis.

Osbrink went into a coma and doctors told his parents that he might not live. Osbrink came out of the coma five days later, but remained in the hospital 40 days.

Every night, Bob would sing Rory a song he had written for him. . Before the illness, Osbrink used to sing along to his father’s songs, but in the hospital, he stopped singing. That’s when Bob realized his son was deaf.

Bob recalled his saddest thought: “He would never hear the song I wrote for him,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.

But Rory, an avid skier who has a ready smile and an 85-m.p.h. fast ball, doesn’t seem to dwell on his hearing loss.

Out on the athletic field, Osbrink was asked to show a visitor a couple of pitches and to pose for a photo. He took off at a sprint to find his glove and returned to ham it up for the photographer--grinning wide.

Osbrink may not be able to hear his father’s song, but there is no lack of music in his world.