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Strong signals: Berkmar embraces deaf teammates as one of its own
A football field is a noisy place.
Whistles. Shouting coaches. Snap counts. Audible calls. Trash talk.
And that’s before you add the crowds, cheerleaders and bands. Stand near a football field during a game. It’s an all-you-can-hear auditory smorgasbord. Imagine the sounds, all of them whipping around as you stand there.
Now take the band away. Let the cheering die out. Fade the other players’ voices down. The coaches’ mouths are moving, but you only see flapping jaws. It’s football, on mute.
For two players at Berkmar High School, this is their football. They smell the grass, and in the later season churned up mud of tired fields. They feel the changing weather; the brisk air that descends as every season wears on. They can taste the worn rubber of their mouth guards and the blades of grass that shoot up from the bottom of every play-ending pile.
They can see the waving banners and the animated coaches. They see the yellow flags. They see the smiles in wins, the head-shaking and lip-biting in losses. They know the feeling of a touchdown and of a turnover. Of a win and a loss.
They are football players. Period.
Justin Malone and Devione Beasley don’t know the world’s noise. Both were born deaf; Malone completely deaf in his right ear and severely in his left, Beasley deaf in his left and slightly in his right.
Like most of their teammates, they both began playing young. Their fathers put them on teams and helped sign in plays and coach’s instructions. They fought for their sons to play. Malone and Beasley learned along with their peers.
The question of why they play football draws the tilted head look of confusion. Only the hearing world would question why a young, hearing impaired boy in Georgia would want to play football. Beasley and Malone are Georgia boys.
They wanted to play football. An ability to hear didn’t seem a prerequisite.
“There’s no straight answer why you start playing football,” Malone said through his interpreter, Lisa Salter. “It was something to do to keep me active.”
Well, there’s one reason.
“You get to make all that money,” Beasley said through his translator, Nathan Humphries.
Combined, those reasons make up every football players’ motivation to put on pads whether they can hear or not. Without saying it, every football player is what Malone and Beasley want to be. They want deaf removed as a qualifying adjective.
They want to play football.
This year wasn’t the best for Berkmar football. The Patriots started the year with their third head coach in four seasons and a new offense mixed with a mostly young team didn’t equal a pile of wins.
Every player and coach knew the season ended Friday, win or lose. That realization doesn’t always translate into the best week of practice. Focus gets hazy and motivation dries up.
But Tuesday morning, when the first taste of winter showed up, Malone and Beasely were dressed and on the field by 8:30 with most of their teammates ready for practice.
As the starting left guard, Malone gets to play nearly every down.
Beasley, a freshman running back, mostly watches. Their translators are with them the whole time. Humphries stays close to Beasley and Salter follows Malone around.
When the coaches talk, the interpreter’s hands quickly piece together the words. Both translators stand in the huddle, and while the quarterback calls the play Malone and Beasley keep their eyes on the translators’ hands.
It took some getting used to for first-year head coach Jonathan Sanks.
“I remember the first day that I got the job, there was this little lady following me around everywhere I went,” Sanks said. “Every time I spoke she would do sign language.
“I asked her, and at the time we had about five kids on the team that couldn’t hear, and she explained (the situation) to me. We became very close because every move I make, she makes. Every emotion I feel, she feels.”
Salter and Humphries aren’t the only two. Tammy Lytle also helps translate for football players. The three share the duties. Malone went out of his way to note his other football translators as well, Sally Slay (now Cook) and Jane Moore.
“If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be as good as I am right now,” said Malone, a varsity starter..
To maximize the county’s resources, Berkmar is the host school in Gwinnett for hearing impaired students. In the high school alone there are 10 translators aiding communication.
High school was the first time Malone or Beasley had translators for football. Their parents helped in youth league and they problem-solved on their own in middle school.
Malone taught his quarterback the signs, but still felt discriminated against when he didn’t play. Beasley’s coach helped interpret the plays for him. But a translator eases those pressures. And there has been no hint of discrimination in high school, especially under Sanks.
“I am able to understand because I have an interpreter,” Beasley said.
“The interpreter is a big benefit,” Malone agreed.
“Mainstreamed” is the terminology they use for students like Malone and Beasley, who take classes alongside those who can hear. These two don’t just show up for football practice, they take classes, eat lunch and walk the halls with their teammates.
The translators help shatter the communication barrier but the students work through it together.
“They are two different worlds, the deaf and hearing worlds,” Malone said. “In the deaf world we sign for communication; in the hearing world some people can’t communicate with me.”
Cell phones have replaced pen and paper as the quickest way to talk without speaking each other’s language. Like his high school peers, Malone is quick with a text message.
But there are no cell phones or pens on a football field. And interpreters aren’t allowed in the huddle. So Malone and Beasley put in extra work.
First, they create signs for offensive play calls. It’s sign language to communicate the secret language of football. The left guard Malone taught his tackles, Jaime Crews and Jaylen Cates, the signs as well.
When the play is called, that night’s translator signals it in from the sideline. Cates or Crews will communicate any changes or just to clarify in the huddle.
Once Malone puts his hand down, any audible calls come from the center, Charles Street, and he flashes them with is free hand to Malone.
“It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t that complicated,” Malone said.
It is still an extra level of complication embraced by Malone and Beasley’s teammates and coaches. The offensive line wasn’t required to learn any sign language, but it did. And even in practice, the players treat Malone and Beasley like everyone else.
“The team has accepted me for who I am,” Malone said. “You will be discriminated against through the road, but you have to get through that. Real teammates accept you for who you are, no matter this issues.”
Beasley plans to return to the football team for his sophomore season. He’ll need to get bigger, but he already is quick enough to make varsity plays. He’s a bit shy, but that comes with his age. Just talking about him, Sanks laughs.
“He has the best personality of any of the kids that I have,” he said. “I don’t know a lick of sign language, but he and I can have full conversations.”
Beasley admits he is still learning how to play at the high school level, but he had to learn before.
“I am motivated to play football,” he said. “I am able to understand things because I have an interpreter.”
Malone wants to play football next season, too. Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., is recruiting him. It’s a school for the deaf that plays football teams with players who can hear. It’s in the Division III Eastern Collegiate Football Conference and is 3-4 heading into tonight’s game against Maritime (N.Y.).
“I am thinking about it,” Malone said of his football future.
There are moments during Berkmar’s football practices when players are allowed to vent their frustrations. A late hit or hard tackle on a goal-line play sets off pocket scrums across the field. Players drive block, tackle or subdue teammates until the whistle blows, sometimes for a while, and order is restored.
Late Tuesday a tackle of an assistant coach in full pads set off a melee and Malone took down his defensive counterpart. He spun him around and put him on his back and held him here, not passively, until the fun ended.
Neither player smiled at the other, but when Malone walked to the line for the next play he nodded to his teammate and stuck out his hand. A slight grin, a nod and a slap back on the extended hand was all the communication the two needed.
A football field is a noisy place.
Whistles. Shouting coaches. Snap counts. Audible calls. Trash talk.
And that’s before you add the crowds, cheerleaders and bands. Stand near a football field during a game. It’s an all-you-can-hear auditory smorgasbord. Imagine the sounds, all of them whipping around as you stand there.
Now take the band away. Let the cheering die out. Fade the other players’ voices down. The coaches’ mouths are moving, but you only see flapping jaws. It’s football, on mute.
For two players at Berkmar High School, this is their football. They smell the grass, and in the later season churned up mud of tired fields. They feel the changing weather; the brisk air that descends as every season wears on. They can taste the worn rubber of their mouth guards and the blades of grass that shoot up from the bottom of every play-ending pile.
They can see the waving banners and the animated coaches. They see the yellow flags. They see the smiles in wins, the head-shaking and lip-biting in losses. They know the feeling of a touchdown and of a turnover. Of a win and a loss.
They are football players. Period.
Justin Malone and Devione Beasley don’t know the world’s noise. Both were born deaf; Malone completely deaf in his right ear and severely in his left, Beasley deaf in his left and slightly in his right.
Like most of their teammates, they both began playing young. Their fathers put them on teams and helped sign in plays and coach’s instructions. They fought for their sons to play. Malone and Beasley learned along with their peers.
The question of why they play football draws the tilted head look of confusion. Only the hearing world would question why a young, hearing impaired boy in Georgia would want to play football. Beasley and Malone are Georgia boys.
They wanted to play football. An ability to hear didn’t seem a prerequisite.
“There’s no straight answer why you start playing football,” Malone said through his interpreter, Lisa Salter. “It was something to do to keep me active.”
Well, there’s one reason.
“You get to make all that money,” Beasley said through his translator, Nathan Humphries.
Combined, those reasons make up every football players’ motivation to put on pads whether they can hear or not. Without saying it, every football player is what Malone and Beasley want to be. They want deaf removed as a qualifying adjective.
They want to play football.
This year wasn’t the best for Berkmar football. The Patriots started the year with their third head coach in four seasons and a new offense mixed with a mostly young team didn’t equal a pile of wins.
Every player and coach knew the season ended Friday, win or lose. That realization doesn’t always translate into the best week of practice. Focus gets hazy and motivation dries up.
But Tuesday morning, when the first taste of winter showed up, Malone and Beasely were dressed and on the field by 8:30 with most of their teammates ready for practice.
As the starting left guard, Malone gets to play nearly every down.
Beasley, a freshman running back, mostly watches. Their translators are with them the whole time. Humphries stays close to Beasley and Salter follows Malone around.
When the coaches talk, the interpreter’s hands quickly piece together the words. Both translators stand in the huddle, and while the quarterback calls the play Malone and Beasley keep their eyes on the translators’ hands.
It took some getting used to for first-year head coach Jonathan Sanks.
“I remember the first day that I got the job, there was this little lady following me around everywhere I went,” Sanks said. “Every time I spoke she would do sign language.
“I asked her, and at the time we had about five kids on the team that couldn’t hear, and she explained (the situation) to me. We became very close because every move I make, she makes. Every emotion I feel, she feels.”
Salter and Humphries aren’t the only two. Tammy Lytle also helps translate for football players. The three share the duties. Malone went out of his way to note his other football translators as well, Sally Slay (now Cook) and Jane Moore.
“If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be as good as I am right now,” said Malone, a varsity starter..
To maximize the county’s resources, Berkmar is the host school in Gwinnett for hearing impaired students. In the high school alone there are 10 translators aiding communication.
High school was the first time Malone or Beasley had translators for football. Their parents helped in youth league and they problem-solved on their own in middle school.
Malone taught his quarterback the signs, but still felt discriminated against when he didn’t play. Beasley’s coach helped interpret the plays for him. But a translator eases those pressures. And there has been no hint of discrimination in high school, especially under Sanks.
“I am able to understand because I have an interpreter,” Beasley said.
“The interpreter is a big benefit,” Malone agreed.
“Mainstreamed” is the terminology they use for students like Malone and Beasley, who take classes alongside those who can hear. These two don’t just show up for football practice, they take classes, eat lunch and walk the halls with their teammates.
The translators help shatter the communication barrier but the students work through it together.
“They are two different worlds, the deaf and hearing worlds,” Malone said. “In the deaf world we sign for communication; in the hearing world some people can’t communicate with me.”
Cell phones have replaced pen and paper as the quickest way to talk without speaking each other’s language. Like his high school peers, Malone is quick with a text message.
But there are no cell phones or pens on a football field. And interpreters aren’t allowed in the huddle. So Malone and Beasley put in extra work.
First, they create signs for offensive play calls. It’s sign language to communicate the secret language of football. The left guard Malone taught his tackles, Jaime Crews and Jaylen Cates, the signs as well.
When the play is called, that night’s translator signals it in from the sideline. Cates or Crews will communicate any changes or just to clarify in the huddle.
Once Malone puts his hand down, any audible calls come from the center, Charles Street, and he flashes them with is free hand to Malone.
“It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t that complicated,” Malone said.
It is still an extra level of complication embraced by Malone and Beasley’s teammates and coaches. The offensive line wasn’t required to learn any sign language, but it did. And even in practice, the players treat Malone and Beasley like everyone else.
“The team has accepted me for who I am,” Malone said. “You will be discriminated against through the road, but you have to get through that. Real teammates accept you for who you are, no matter this issues.”
Beasley plans to return to the football team for his sophomore season. He’ll need to get bigger, but he already is quick enough to make varsity plays. He’s a bit shy, but that comes with his age. Just talking about him, Sanks laughs.
“He has the best personality of any of the kids that I have,” he said. “I don’t know a lick of sign language, but he and I can have full conversations.”
Beasley admits he is still learning how to play at the high school level, but he had to learn before.
“I am motivated to play football,” he said. “I am able to understand things because I have an interpreter.”
Malone wants to play football next season, too. Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., is recruiting him. It’s a school for the deaf that plays football teams with players who can hear. It’s in the Division III Eastern Collegiate Football Conference and is 3-4 heading into tonight’s game against Maritime (N.Y.).
“I am thinking about it,” Malone said of his football future.
There are moments during Berkmar’s football practices when players are allowed to vent their frustrations. A late hit or hard tackle on a goal-line play sets off pocket scrums across the field. Players drive block, tackle or subdue teammates until the whistle blows, sometimes for a while, and order is restored.
Late Tuesday a tackle of an assistant coach in full pads set off a melee and Malone took down his defensive counterpart. He spun him around and put him on his back and held him here, not passively, until the fun ended.
Neither player smiled at the other, but when Malone walked to the line for the next play he nodded to his teammate and stuck out his hand. A slight grin, a nod and a slap back on the extended hand was all the communication the two needed.
