Officiating Game where One Team is Deaf

[BillyMac]

Wait until you get a game where both teams are deaf. I've had several over the past thirty years. By the end of the game one finds that one's signals have become very much improved. We have the benefit here of having a hearing site director that knows sign language, and a boys varsity coach, who is deaf, who is also a member of our local officiating board, so he knows what it's like, deaf vs. hearing, coach vs. official, and makes our jobs as officials much easier, as he's been "around the block a few times". When it really comes down to it, it's a basketball game. Really.

A few years ago, when my daughter played college soccer, they had a game against Gallaudet University, a school for deaf and hard of hearing undergraduate students. Although highly skilled, my daughter said that the Gallaudet women were really at a disadvantage because they couldn't talk to each other, and had to rely on other forms of communication.