Deaf athletes hurdle barriers, achieve goals in college sports

By Robert Klemko, USA TODAY

TOWSON, Md. — In a Towson Universityfootball team meeting room filled with more than 60 players and a dozen coaches, linebacker Ryan Bonheyo 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 NCAAand 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. "

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