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Obstacles can't deter Amanda-Clearcreek's Van Horn on, off mat | lancastereaglegazette.com | Lancaster Eagle Gazette
Michelle Van Horn kneeled mat-side, her hands twisting and contorting in ways she hoped her brother would understand.
Hart Van Horn, seated a foot away, broke from his videotaping duties to signal encouragement to his son, who was locked in a battle for the 152-pound championship at last week's Jeff Arndt Classic at Amanda-Clearcreek.
Aces coach Brian Brison yelled instructions to Tyler Van Horn with Krista Shoults, sitting in a chair normally reserved for coaches, interpreting every word into sign language.
Tyler stole glances to his supporters when he could, but, as he says, any wrestler, deaf or not, risks "losing points when you look at a coach."
Tyler, deaf from birth, has put behind him a rocky start to his wrestling career and emerged as one of Amanda-Clearcreek's senior leaders this season.
"If you look at his progression, he's gotten better every year," Brison said. "It's pretty amazing there's been that much improvement in four years' time. He's done a lot of things the right way."
The right way is the only way Tyler knows how to accomplish things.
Whether it's his post-secondary classes, his second-year latin courses or his involvement with the FFA, Tyler attacks it with the same verve he shows in wrestling. His deafness has done little to slow him.
'WE WANTED TO GIVE HIM AN OPTION'
Tyler is deaf only when he wants to be. It's a choice given to him by his parents, Hart and his wife, Lisa, and doctors and surgeons at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Tyler, 17, was fitted with a cochlear implant when he was 2 1/2 years old. The surgery, experimental and not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration 14 years ago, buried a transmitter inside his skull behind his right ear. The transmitter is fed signals from an external microphone held in place on Tyler's head by magnets and bypasses the damaged portion of the inner ear. It connects directly with the cochlea, stimulating the auditory nerve.
The result for Tyler was the ability to hear in situations where ambient and background noise isn't overwhelming. The decision to go forward with the implant, however, wasn't easily arrived at, said Hart, who works for a property management company in Columbus.
"You just don't step up and say, 'Yeah, I want you to drill a hole in my kid's head and put something experimental in there,'" he said. "But it was easy to decide we wanted to give him an option."
After moving from suburban Chicago to Bremen 10 years ago, the Van Horns enrolled Tyler at the Ohio School for the Deaf, where he remained until the sixth grade, when he began classes at Amanda-Clearcreek.
"His success at the deaf school was to the point that we felt he could get more out of a regular school," Hart said. "If he decided, after spending a few years in the deaf community with the deaf school, to stay there and graduate from there and came to us and said 'Look, I don't need this (implant),' we'd respect his wishes.
"I think he's figured out how to live in both worlds."
With an army of interpreters helping him, Tyler has climbed the academic ladder at Amanda-Clearcreek. He's carrying a 3.8 grade-point average and, by the end of the school year, could have enough post-secondary credits to enter college as a sophomore. He wants to become a large-animal veterinarian.
"He treats his academics like he treats his sport," Hart said. "We couldn't be happier with it."
'DRIVEN TO WIN'
Tyler Van Horn the student didn't became Tyler Van Horn the wrestler without some trepidation. When he went to Hart and Lisa to say he wanted to wrestle, his parents were less than enthusiastic.
"Our first reaction was 'Oh, no way.' We were not interested," Hart said. "But we pursued the junior high coaches and talked it over with them and put some limits on how we would get started."
Why wrestling?
"I'm driven to win," Tyler said. "I was on the soccer team here for a few years, and I love soccer. But wrestling is something that drives me more to win."
A junior high career gave way to a high school career and a freshman season that was anything but successful. Tyler finished with an 8-24 record as he struggled to adapt to high school competition.
"Yes it's cost me a bunch of matches over the years," Tyler said of his deafness. "It cost me two matches this year because I wasn't following directions or I didn't hear the directions clearly. But if I lose, that makes me more driven to win next time."
Tyler's signature win came last week against Logan's Kurt Geiger. A takedown with 5 seconds left in the match sent Tyler, who was 23-4 heading into Saturday's tournament at Miami Trace, to a 4-2 victory and a championship. It also touched off a celebration among his fans and supporters.
"He's the greatest guy I know," Michelle Van Horn said. "He's so inspirational."
Tyler's success, both academic and athletic, certainly is cause for pride among the Van Horns, but it's not an emotion on which the family dwells.
"In our household we don't talk about pride much. Satisfaction? Yes. But pride not so much," Hart said. "We try to tell our kids that we don't want pride to get in the way of doing the right thing."
Michelle Van Horn kneeled mat-side, her hands twisting and contorting in ways she hoped her brother would understand.
Hart Van Horn, seated a foot away, broke from his videotaping duties to signal encouragement to his son, who was locked in a battle for the 152-pound championship at last week's Jeff Arndt Classic at Amanda-Clearcreek.
Aces coach Brian Brison yelled instructions to Tyler Van Horn with Krista Shoults, sitting in a chair normally reserved for coaches, interpreting every word into sign language.
Tyler stole glances to his supporters when he could, but, as he says, any wrestler, deaf or not, risks "losing points when you look at a coach."
Tyler, deaf from birth, has put behind him a rocky start to his wrestling career and emerged as one of Amanda-Clearcreek's senior leaders this season.
"If you look at his progression, he's gotten better every year," Brison said. "It's pretty amazing there's been that much improvement in four years' time. He's done a lot of things the right way."
The right way is the only way Tyler knows how to accomplish things.
Whether it's his post-secondary classes, his second-year latin courses or his involvement with the FFA, Tyler attacks it with the same verve he shows in wrestling. His deafness has done little to slow him.
'WE WANTED TO GIVE HIM AN OPTION'
Tyler is deaf only when he wants to be. It's a choice given to him by his parents, Hart and his wife, Lisa, and doctors and surgeons at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Tyler, 17, was fitted with a cochlear implant when he was 2 1/2 years old. The surgery, experimental and not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration 14 years ago, buried a transmitter inside his skull behind his right ear. The transmitter is fed signals from an external microphone held in place on Tyler's head by magnets and bypasses the damaged portion of the inner ear. It connects directly with the cochlea, stimulating the auditory nerve.
The result for Tyler was the ability to hear in situations where ambient and background noise isn't overwhelming. The decision to go forward with the implant, however, wasn't easily arrived at, said Hart, who works for a property management company in Columbus.
"You just don't step up and say, 'Yeah, I want you to drill a hole in my kid's head and put something experimental in there,'" he said. "But it was easy to decide we wanted to give him an option."
After moving from suburban Chicago to Bremen 10 years ago, the Van Horns enrolled Tyler at the Ohio School for the Deaf, where he remained until the sixth grade, when he began classes at Amanda-Clearcreek.
"His success at the deaf school was to the point that we felt he could get more out of a regular school," Hart said. "If he decided, after spending a few years in the deaf community with the deaf school, to stay there and graduate from there and came to us and said 'Look, I don't need this (implant),' we'd respect his wishes.
"I think he's figured out how to live in both worlds."
With an army of interpreters helping him, Tyler has climbed the academic ladder at Amanda-Clearcreek. He's carrying a 3.8 grade-point average and, by the end of the school year, could have enough post-secondary credits to enter college as a sophomore. He wants to become a large-animal veterinarian.
"He treats his academics like he treats his sport," Hart said. "We couldn't be happier with it."
'DRIVEN TO WIN'
Tyler Van Horn the student didn't became Tyler Van Horn the wrestler without some trepidation. When he went to Hart and Lisa to say he wanted to wrestle, his parents were less than enthusiastic.
"Our first reaction was 'Oh, no way.' We were not interested," Hart said. "But we pursued the junior high coaches and talked it over with them and put some limits on how we would get started."
Why wrestling?
"I'm driven to win," Tyler said. "I was on the soccer team here for a few years, and I love soccer. But wrestling is something that drives me more to win."
A junior high career gave way to a high school career and a freshman season that was anything but successful. Tyler finished with an 8-24 record as he struggled to adapt to high school competition.
"Yes it's cost me a bunch of matches over the years," Tyler said of his deafness. "It cost me two matches this year because I wasn't following directions or I didn't hear the directions clearly. But if I lose, that makes me more driven to win next time."
Tyler's signature win came last week against Logan's Kurt Geiger. A takedown with 5 seconds left in the match sent Tyler, who was 23-4 heading into Saturday's tournament at Miami Trace, to a 4-2 victory and a championship. It also touched off a celebration among his fans and supporters.
"He's the greatest guy I know," Michelle Van Horn said. "He's so inspirational."
Tyler's success, both academic and athletic, certainly is cause for pride among the Van Horns, but it's not an emotion on which the family dwells.
"In our household we don't talk about pride much. Satisfaction? Yes. But pride not so much," Hart said. "We try to tell our kids that we don't want pride to get in the way of doing the right thing."