UCLA Tailback Derrick Coleman — see the hearing aids!?!
Derrick Coleman, a tailback on the UCLA Bruins football team, is not only a successful athlete who happens to have hearing loss, but also a stellar young man who has distinguished himself as one of the recipients of the 2009 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team®. (AFCA = American Football Coaches Association)
Coleman’s UCLA profile can be founder HERE. An email from UCLA media relations, found on THIS site states:
UCLA sophomore Derrick Coleman is one of the 22 student-athletes being honored. Coleman, who plays college football despite a near total hearing loss in both ears, speaks to youngsters about staying positive despite their hearing issues. He wears hearing aids, including at practices and games, and encourages youngsters not to be embarrassed about wearing the devices.
Coleman communicates using spoken language, and, according to THIS LA Times article, “I just went from being a child who never talked to one who never shuts up,” Coleman said, smiling. “Sometimes I felt a little out of place because I had a hearing aid. But at the same time, I did everything the other kids did.”
How does he do it? He relies on expensive, waterproof hearing aids — kept snug to his head by a skull cap — in order to hear commands in the huddle and during practice. (The Orange County Register)
Derrick Coleman — what a remarkable hEARo for us all!
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