Deaf football player pens account of rock bottom and the climb back
By Carol Cole-Frowe
THE NORMAN TRANSCRIPT (NORMAN, Okla.)
NORMAN, Okla. — Football gave so much to Eric Thunander.
In high school, it gave the deaf young man a way out of a tough
childhood and some normalcy despite his disability. In college, it
gave him identity, pride, a sense of belonging and a huge,
diamond-encrusted ring from his gridiron contribution to the
University of Oklahoma’s 2000 National Championship team.
But when it took away his dream, it almost took away his life.
The former OU defensive end remembers what it was like to hit rock
bottom.
After a head injury that ended his promising football career, and a
painful divorce, Thunander downed much of a fifth of Jack Daniels, put
a single bullet in a revolver, put the gun barrel to his head and
pulled the trigger.
Click.
There was no bullet in that first chamber. But if Thunander had
pulled the trigger just one more time, it likely would have been
fatal. And he realized how far he had fallen.
Thunander called his friend and the man who recruited him,
co-defensive football coach Brent Venables, who had believed in and
encouraged the young man who has 95 percent hearing loss in his left
ear and 92 percent loss in his right. With hearing aids, he calls
himself “very hard of hearing.”
And about a week later, OU’s head coach Bob Stoops called back.
“Hey Thundercat! How have you been?” Thunander remembers Stoops
asking, using the nickname Stoops gave him from an old cartoon strip.
Stoops inquired as to what he was doing the next semester and offered
Thunander a chance to return to OU on a football scholarship, a rarity
in college sports for an injured player.
“I have a second chance and a second lease on life and I almost
threw it away,” Thunander said.
Thunander tells his story of despair, hope, tenacity and resilience
in his new autobiography, “Silent Thunder,” about how he created
success for himself despite a childhood of chronic abuse and bouncing
among multiple foster homes. And he talks about turning points and how
his OU “family” saved his life.
Stoops and OU President David Boren wrote the forewords.
“You may not appreciate just how great a victory he has won until
you read the story, but trust me; he has endured tribulations that
would have devastated many of us,” Stoops wrote. “College coaches
are often cited for the way they motivate others. Truth be told, it is
often these same young men that motivate coaches. Eric was that kind
of player for me. He has impacted my life in a positive way and I know
he does the same for so many others.”
Thunander said he penned “Silent Thunder” for himself.
“I was caught in the past and I thought maybe if I write it down
and read it and put it inside so I can start moving forward …
because I was kind of hanging here in limbo,” he said.
But along the way, he found when he spoke to individuals and groups,
they would draw inspiration from his experiences. And it gave him a
goal of becoming a motivational speaker. He now has a bachelor’s
degree from OU in communications.
“Being a motivational speaker to me is when I’m in my element,”
he said. “Even though it’s really strange, with me being deaf, I
always have this urge to talk.”
As a child, his hearing mother didn’t want to learn sign language.
She wanted Thunander to read lips and speak.
“She would force me to talk,” he said. “You know, it kind of
gave me a connection with the hearing world, but growing up with the
environment I was in didn’t help much either.”
He went to mainstream schools in California and later in Lee’s
Summit, Mo.
But he also was a victim of abuse from two of his mother’s three
husbands, he said. He was moved from foster home to foster home.
When he was 13, he saw a story about Kenny Walker, a deaf football
player for the University of Nebraska, who went on to play for the
Denver Broncos in the 1990s. And he thought football might be
something he could be good at.
So play football he did, priding himself on working “five times as
hard as any other player.” Thunander was ranked in high school as
the 58th-best player in the Midlands by SuperPrep magazine. He
registered 242 career tackles, with 90 tackles, two interceptions and
two fumble recoveries as a senior at Lee’s Summit. He was part of
Lee’s Summit’s mile relay team that set the state record.
He was recruited by almost three dozen college programs — until
they would learn he was deaf and somehow forget him.
OU was the exception. Thunander was offered a scholarship and found a
new home, something that surprised his Lee’s Summit teammates, some
of whom said he didn’t deserve it.
But Thunander didn’t believe them. He knew he’d outworked almost
everybody for the opportunity to play university ball.
“My (OU) teammates accepted me and I never had that in high school.
I found a family in the OU community,” Thunander said.
One day in his political science class taught by Boren, the subject
turned to welfare reform.
Thunander shared his story with the class and how he had worked his
way past hard times. He told Boren and his classmates that he had
found his family.
“And that was always his dream,” Thunander said of Boren, a
former Oklahoma governor and U.S. senator who said his primary goal
was creating a sense of community at OU.
He would learn that Boren sometimes used that story — of Thunander
talking to his fellow students and uplifting them.
In his foreword, Boren calls Thunander’s story “an inspiring
story of individual strength built upon a remarkable capacity to love
and to forgive.”
“It is also a call for us to realize the difference that we can
make in the lives of others through friendship and mentorship,” he
writes.
Thunander found his faith about a year ago, which brought a new focus
and joy to his life.
“After I finally found God, everything started to make sense,” he
said.
As Thunander’s hearing continues to fade, he is considering
cochlear implants. But there is a stigma attached to the technological
advance and he’s struggling with the decision.
“The deaf community looks down on it. They think the cochlear
implant is trying to kill their culture, with the sign language and
the facial expressions. They look down on deaf people trying to speak
or wearing a hearing aid or a cochlear implant,” Thunander said.
But he also feels that one of his goals is to help bridge the hearing
world with the deaf world. And he would like to work to update the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
“I want to focus more on positive things for the deaf community.
And I want to help focus them on the way they think,” said
Thunander, who describes himself as a quiet guy who leads by example.
“If you want to be successful, here’s what you need to do. You
don’t sit around and complain about it. You go out and do what you
say you’re going to do.”
What does he want to tell people?
“It’s how you pick yourself up and move forward. … If you put
your faith in yourself, the only person who’s holding you back is
yourself,” Thunander said.
Carol Cole-Frowe writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript.
Link:
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/religion/cnhinsfaith_story_118092703.html
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