Texas School for the Deaf prepares for homecoming game
by NOELLE NEWTON / KVUE NEWS
Posted on October 8, 2010
High school football teams are all hoping for a win this week. It is an
especially important game week for the Texas School for the Deaf.
Hands are clapping, mouths screaming, feet pounding as the Ranger
cheerleaders and mascot make a lap around the gym floor. It’s the homecoming
pep rally.
It seems like any other high school until the cheerleaders start to chant.
Instead of yelling, they sign the words to a pounding drum. It’s the
heartbeat of the Texas School for the Deaf.
“Almost all deaf have 50 to 100 decibel hearing loss and so the drum
actually allows everyone to feel it and be on the same hearing level even
with your hearing loss,” TSD high school teacher Larry Smith said.
“You can feel it through your bones,” football player Dalton Etkie said of
the drum.
The noise is enough to rival any mainstream school.
“A normal school is kind of boring for a pep rally. Here, we’re like, ‘Come
on, let’s have some spirit,’” freshman Emma Crawford said.
The school has one pep rally a year, so it’s a big deal for the students.
“We dress in blue and white, in our school colors, and, you know, we spray
our hair blue and white, put on as much makeup as we can,” Crawford said.
Saturday the football team takes on the Orioles of the Indiana School for
the Deaf. Smith, who happens to be a former Ranger football player, says the
school has never in its 154 year history lost to Indiana.
“Texas has to win. We have to keep that tradition going, and everyone knows
that Texas is a football state,” Smith said.
You have a personal invitation from the quarterback to watch from the
stands.
“It will be a really exciting game. We can show everybody that deaf people
can play sports like hearing people,” Etkie said.
Kickoff at Gamblin Field is set for 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
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