Deaf Athlete Shines Bright on Colgan's Football Field

By: Evan Sprung and Lincoln Puls

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Football is a fast-paced sport where mistakes are minimal, you have to be as tough as nails, and faster than the opponent; but what if you did all this without one of your crucial 5 senses, hearing? Well, that's what Skylar Ferguson experiences on the football field.

A team like Colgan’s has to adapt to many challenges each year, this year having a deaf player on the varsity team is going need to be deciphered. Even at the highest performing levels of football there are mistakes for example, Josh Allen quarterback for the Buffalo Bills threw 3 interceptions to the jet’s safety in their season opener. Little miscalculations like that can cost you the game and in Allen’s case it did.

“It's a little bit more difficult...” said Skylar Ferguson about the comparison of understanding signs in the field to the classroom “...sometimes it is hard to see where the interpreters are at.” Coaches communicate with to the other players by yelling the plays for them to hear and having predisposed hand signals for specific plays, but how does Ferguson understand the plays?

“...We have a sign language interpreter that is out for him...” said head football coach Reggie Scott “...Skylar has been one of our best sophomores, he’s got a bright future and I look forward to him continuing to do big things for us going forward...” However, communicating with the rest of the team is just as important as communicating with the coaching staff, “[communicating] it's not really difficult” said Ferguson still feels to have the same bond with the team as if he didn’t have any hearing difficulties at all.

Looking deeper into how the coaching staff and the team has had to adapt to having a player like Skylar who is partially deaf but when asked about how it has affected the team “[Ferguson] he doesn’t see it as a handicap but a minor distraction on field.” Coach Scott said, the coaching staff have been extremely supportive of his decision to play and drive to be better Coach Scott said, “he’s done great things for us and continuously strives to be better and that’s what are program is all about.”

For the rest of the season Ferguson is continuing to do great things for the team and showing others it doesn’t matter if you have a partial handicap or a full disability if you work towards your goal, you can achieve it.