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Journal Gazette | 06/15/2007 | Nearly deaf center fielder provides Norwell’s spark
It is a joyful thing about pleasant surprises; how they’re like a thread of radiant light that bores through the opening of a cloud on one of those gray days when you never planned to see the afternoon’s sun. It is within those unexpected moments of touching the face of courage or humility or exceptional talent – or in the case of Norwell center fielder Scott Woodward, all three – that we seem to remember the most, and how they leave a lasting impression.
Then what it is about a high school senior who is the leadoff hitter and occasionally pitches for one of the best baseball teams not just in the state, but maybe of all time in Indiana?
No. 1 Norwell and its 34-0 record will be playing for the Class 3A championship Saturday at Indianapolis’ Victory Field against Evansville Mater Dei (22-12), and only two teams in state baseball tournament history have finished undefeated.
But to begin to know Woodward you must tap him on his shoulder after Norwell’s 12-0 victory over Bishop Luers in the championship game of the 3A regional. Not only is he still wearing his No. 10 uniform, but he’s also wearing the symbols of his playing style: There is the sweat that continues to stream down his dark face, the horizontal streaks of lamp black beneath both sharp blue eyes and the infield dirt on the front of his jersey from head-first slides that his mother, Linda, has gotten used to by now.
If Norman Rockwell, the great illustrator of Americana, were still alive to paint the portrait of a ballplayer, Woodward would grace a magazine cover.
But at this moment you want him to talk about how he ran down a sure double in deep right-center field that stole two runs away from Luers. You want him to share his feelings and his own sense of accomplishment for such defensive gems. You tap him on the shoulder and ask about the catches and hope that the boy overflows with enthusiasm.
Except there is no bravado or chest thumping in the kid. He gives the shrug of an 18-year-old and says of his catches, “They weren’t that hard.”
No. No, I suppose not. Not after you get to know him. Not after what he’s done and what he’s accomplished and what he has survived. The simple act of chasing down a baseball probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to him.
“He wasn’t raised that way,” says his father, Kevin Woodward.
See, the truth of it is this: Scott Woodward is nearly deaf. His left ear is. His right ear is close, but it’s helped with a hearing aid that he takes out only when he goes to bed and has to be awakened the next morning by an alarm clock that vibrates beneath his pillow.
Two months after his first birthday, the first-born child of Kevin and Linda Woodward acquired bacterial meningitis and was in the hospital for 10 days. Doctors of all kinds came in to see the little boy. They performed tests. They banged their hands together to see whether the child would respond to the loud noise. And when he didn’t, and the diagnosis was evident that his hearing was all but gone, the three Woodwards were sent home to begin a life that few families ever expect.
Naturally, the mood inside their home was bleak during those early days. The little boy who ran and laughed and could hear his mom and dad without any problem whatsoever was back from the hospital and back in his familiar surroundings that suddenly were quiet. He had fought off the disease that nearly took his life. But meningitis didn’t go away empty-handed. What it took was his most of his hearing.
“It was pretty devastating, not even knowing anybody who was hearing-impaired,” Linda Woodward said of those first few days.
But they would learn to cope. They would learn how to sign. Woodward would learn how to read lips and learn to speak. They would learn to stomp the floor to get his attention, because when the floor would vibrate, little Scotty would look up. They would learn as a family that a hearing loss can be a setback and not a handicap, even though a $1,200 hearing aid would forever be Woodward’s link with the world of sound.
Kevin and Linda had always noticed something with Woodward, though; that he was extremely coordinated and athletic. Give him a bat and ball, and he was a natural. Give him a soccer ball, and he was adept. Let him play basketball, and he was better than other kids. They saw it when he was 2 1/2 and saw it when he went to Ossian Elementary, and the boy began to flourish when he was at Norwell Middle School.
The only problem was that he was going through the expensive hearing aids the way water runs through a funnel.
“They were flopping off his ears all the time,” Linda Woodward said. “Once he started getting active he’d get sweaty and they’d short out. There are things you work through, though.”
Yes, you work through things. By the time Woodward had reached Norwell High School, he had become not just an all-around athlete and honor roll student, but a 6-foot standout who would eventually earn a baseball scholarship to Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C.
As a freshman, he gave up playing soccer to pick up football. He wasn’t just fast; he was a fast study. He eventually became a first-team Bloomington Herald-Times all-state defensive back, setting the school record for career interceptions with 13. In addition to being a wide receiver and punter for the 2006 state runner-up Knights, who won 14 straight before losing in the championship game, he was also honorable-mention all-state place-kicker, hitting 72 of 84 extra-point attempts for another school record that will likely stand forever.
His baseball accomplishments are just as impressive. A two-time all-NHC outfielder, Woodward has a .462 batting average this year with six home runs, four triples and seven doubles.
He needs to score two runs Saturday to give him 62 this season, which would set a one-season state record. And as a pitcher, he’s 8-0 with a 1.93 ERA.
“If I had to pick somebody, he’d probably be the spark of the team,” shortstop Kreigh Williams said.
They have been friends forever, Woodward and Williams; friends and neighbors who go back as far as tee ball; back when Woodward’s hearing aids would flop and fail and Williams, who himself learned a version of signing, wouldn’t lose a conversational beat.
“I remember I used to know sign language when he couldn’t talk as well as he can right now,” Williams said. “That was always cool. I kind of learned his version of (signing), so it was probably wrong, but he knew what I was saying. That’s all that mattered.”
What mattered is that Woodward was finding a niche and was making a name for himself. He just wasn’t the hard of hearing kid anymore.
“Growing up I didn’t know how I was going to be,” Woodward said, his speech slightly affected by his hearing loss.
“Going through middle school and being accepted by a lot of my friends and playing sports with them kind of put me into their group. If I didn’t have sports, then I probably wouldn’t have as many friends as I did, so just playing sports helped me.”
One of the first to determine the severity of Woodward’s hearing loss was Dr. Mark Carter, now with The Hearing Center. He ran the boy through another battery of tests and fit his small ears for hearing aids. Since then he has watched the metamorphosis, from toddler to teen, from the shy introvert to the leader of one of the best high school baseball teams the state has ever seen.
“Probably out of all the patients I’ve seen over these years, he does the best with that severe-to-profound hearing loss of any kid I’ve seen,” Carter says.
“As I remember Scott when he was 3, 4, 5 years old, he adapted. He was able to adapt to his environment, no matter what the situation, no matter what the circumstances. That’s what moved him a level ahead of so many kids who don’t have any limitations – just determination.”
The three Woodwards – Scott, Linda to his left, Kevin sitting across from him – sit at their dining room table inside their corner-lot home in Markle. Younger brother Brock, a 16-year-old who’ll be a junior at Bluffton, probably isn’t awake yet.
They freely talk about what it was like in those early years and what it will be like when Scott will be away from home, when he’ll be at Coastal Carolina next year.
“I remember when he was young,” Kevin Woodward says. “I thought – because we didn’t know what he could hear then – my whole focus at that time was when Scott goes to college, it would really be nice if he could just talk on the phone. It’s small, I know, but he’s able to do that.”
Linda Woodward looks directly at Scott when she says, “People have been amazed at what he’s been able to achieve. Yeah, we’re extremely proud of him and how he handles it. He doesn’t say, ‘Pity me.’ Once in a while he’ll make the comment, ‘I didn’t hear you. I’m deaf.’ Or he’ll turn off his hearing aid and we’ll tease him about that. But it amazes us, even more recently, to see the impact he’s had.”
It’s a joyful thing about pleasant surprises.
It is a joyful thing about pleasant surprises; how they’re like a thread of radiant light that bores through the opening of a cloud on one of those gray days when you never planned to see the afternoon’s sun. It is within those unexpected moments of touching the face of courage or humility or exceptional talent – or in the case of Norwell center fielder Scott Woodward, all three – that we seem to remember the most, and how they leave a lasting impression.
Then what it is about a high school senior who is the leadoff hitter and occasionally pitches for one of the best baseball teams not just in the state, but maybe of all time in Indiana?
No. 1 Norwell and its 34-0 record will be playing for the Class 3A championship Saturday at Indianapolis’ Victory Field against Evansville Mater Dei (22-12), and only two teams in state baseball tournament history have finished undefeated.
But to begin to know Woodward you must tap him on his shoulder after Norwell’s 12-0 victory over Bishop Luers in the championship game of the 3A regional. Not only is he still wearing his No. 10 uniform, but he’s also wearing the symbols of his playing style: There is the sweat that continues to stream down his dark face, the horizontal streaks of lamp black beneath both sharp blue eyes and the infield dirt on the front of his jersey from head-first slides that his mother, Linda, has gotten used to by now.
If Norman Rockwell, the great illustrator of Americana, were still alive to paint the portrait of a ballplayer, Woodward would grace a magazine cover.
But at this moment you want him to talk about how he ran down a sure double in deep right-center field that stole two runs away from Luers. You want him to share his feelings and his own sense of accomplishment for such defensive gems. You tap him on the shoulder and ask about the catches and hope that the boy overflows with enthusiasm.
Except there is no bravado or chest thumping in the kid. He gives the shrug of an 18-year-old and says of his catches, “They weren’t that hard.”
No. No, I suppose not. Not after you get to know him. Not after what he’s done and what he’s accomplished and what he has survived. The simple act of chasing down a baseball probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to him.
“He wasn’t raised that way,” says his father, Kevin Woodward.
See, the truth of it is this: Scott Woodward is nearly deaf. His left ear is. His right ear is close, but it’s helped with a hearing aid that he takes out only when he goes to bed and has to be awakened the next morning by an alarm clock that vibrates beneath his pillow.
Two months after his first birthday, the first-born child of Kevin and Linda Woodward acquired bacterial meningitis and was in the hospital for 10 days. Doctors of all kinds came in to see the little boy. They performed tests. They banged their hands together to see whether the child would respond to the loud noise. And when he didn’t, and the diagnosis was evident that his hearing was all but gone, the three Woodwards were sent home to begin a life that few families ever expect.
Naturally, the mood inside their home was bleak during those early days. The little boy who ran and laughed and could hear his mom and dad without any problem whatsoever was back from the hospital and back in his familiar surroundings that suddenly were quiet. He had fought off the disease that nearly took his life. But meningitis didn’t go away empty-handed. What it took was his most of his hearing.
“It was pretty devastating, not even knowing anybody who was hearing-impaired,” Linda Woodward said of those first few days.
But they would learn to cope. They would learn how to sign. Woodward would learn how to read lips and learn to speak. They would learn to stomp the floor to get his attention, because when the floor would vibrate, little Scotty would look up. They would learn as a family that a hearing loss can be a setback and not a handicap, even though a $1,200 hearing aid would forever be Woodward’s link with the world of sound.
Kevin and Linda had always noticed something with Woodward, though; that he was extremely coordinated and athletic. Give him a bat and ball, and he was a natural. Give him a soccer ball, and he was adept. Let him play basketball, and he was better than other kids. They saw it when he was 2 1/2 and saw it when he went to Ossian Elementary, and the boy began to flourish when he was at Norwell Middle School.
The only problem was that he was going through the expensive hearing aids the way water runs through a funnel.
“They were flopping off his ears all the time,” Linda Woodward said. “Once he started getting active he’d get sweaty and they’d short out. There are things you work through, though.”
Yes, you work through things. By the time Woodward had reached Norwell High School, he had become not just an all-around athlete and honor roll student, but a 6-foot standout who would eventually earn a baseball scholarship to Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C.
As a freshman, he gave up playing soccer to pick up football. He wasn’t just fast; he was a fast study. He eventually became a first-team Bloomington Herald-Times all-state defensive back, setting the school record for career interceptions with 13. In addition to being a wide receiver and punter for the 2006 state runner-up Knights, who won 14 straight before losing in the championship game, he was also honorable-mention all-state place-kicker, hitting 72 of 84 extra-point attempts for another school record that will likely stand forever.
His baseball accomplishments are just as impressive. A two-time all-NHC outfielder, Woodward has a .462 batting average this year with six home runs, four triples and seven doubles.
He needs to score two runs Saturday to give him 62 this season, which would set a one-season state record. And as a pitcher, he’s 8-0 with a 1.93 ERA.
“If I had to pick somebody, he’d probably be the spark of the team,” shortstop Kreigh Williams said.
They have been friends forever, Woodward and Williams; friends and neighbors who go back as far as tee ball; back when Woodward’s hearing aids would flop and fail and Williams, who himself learned a version of signing, wouldn’t lose a conversational beat.
“I remember I used to know sign language when he couldn’t talk as well as he can right now,” Williams said. “That was always cool. I kind of learned his version of (signing), so it was probably wrong, but he knew what I was saying. That’s all that mattered.”
What mattered is that Woodward was finding a niche and was making a name for himself. He just wasn’t the hard of hearing kid anymore.
“Growing up I didn’t know how I was going to be,” Woodward said, his speech slightly affected by his hearing loss.
“Going through middle school and being accepted by a lot of my friends and playing sports with them kind of put me into their group. If I didn’t have sports, then I probably wouldn’t have as many friends as I did, so just playing sports helped me.”
One of the first to determine the severity of Woodward’s hearing loss was Dr. Mark Carter, now with The Hearing Center. He ran the boy through another battery of tests and fit his small ears for hearing aids. Since then he has watched the metamorphosis, from toddler to teen, from the shy introvert to the leader of one of the best high school baseball teams the state has ever seen.
“Probably out of all the patients I’ve seen over these years, he does the best with that severe-to-profound hearing loss of any kid I’ve seen,” Carter says.
“As I remember Scott when he was 3, 4, 5 years old, he adapted. He was able to adapt to his environment, no matter what the situation, no matter what the circumstances. That’s what moved him a level ahead of so many kids who don’t have any limitations – just determination.”
The three Woodwards – Scott, Linda to his left, Kevin sitting across from him – sit at their dining room table inside their corner-lot home in Markle. Younger brother Brock, a 16-year-old who’ll be a junior at Bluffton, probably isn’t awake yet.
They freely talk about what it was like in those early years and what it will be like when Scott will be away from home, when he’ll be at Coastal Carolina next year.
“I remember when he was young,” Kevin Woodward says. “I thought – because we didn’t know what he could hear then – my whole focus at that time was when Scott goes to college, it would really be nice if he could just talk on the phone. It’s small, I know, but he’s able to do that.”
Linda Woodward looks directly at Scott when she says, “People have been amazed at what he’s been able to achieve. Yeah, we’re extremely proud of him and how he handles it. He doesn’t say, ‘Pity me.’ Once in a while he’ll make the comment, ‘I didn’t hear you. I’m deaf.’ Or he’ll turn off his hearing aid and we’ll tease him about that. But it amazes us, even more recently, to see the impact he’s had.”
It’s a joyful thing about pleasant surprises.