	March 1998

Sign Language,

and (Very Early!) Assistive Technology in Sports

by Pete Moore

I'm sure there are a lot of football and baseball fans out there, and many of you, including myself, have argued calls made by the officials who run the game. But how many of you knows the origin of the signals that officials used in the games we grew up to play and follow Œtil our death? Baseball was born in 1869, but General Abner Doubleday wasn't the founder of the sport. He codified the rules. That is. he made one set of rules everyone must follow.

In the last century there was the first professional team called The Cincinnati Red Stockings or The Redlegs ( now called Reds). There was one player named Wilbur who played on the team. He was different from all the rest of the players. He was deaf in both ears, since birth, I believe. He was called "Dummy" by his teammates because he couldn't talk. That was society back then.

The Umpire behind home plate usually shouts out balls and strikes, but Hoy couldn't hear him and many fans watching couldn't hear either, with all the shouting going on in the background. So, Hoy thought of a way for the Umpires to make the calls and for the fans and everyone else to follow. What you see today is the result of Hoy's invention and his love for the game that became our national past time. Hoy himself died in 1961 at the age of 90 years old. He may have been called ³Dummy" by his teammates, but to me he was a lot smarter than his teammates ever will be for developing the signals as we know them today.

Football has been around a long time now. Though the way the game was played has changed since the early days of the game. Ever think of where the huddle came from or those giant drums you see in those college games?

It all started in the early 1890's at Gallaudet University. Then, the school was called Columbia School for The Deaf and Dumb. In a ceremony in 1900 Edward Miner Gallaudet, who was the school's first President, renamed the school in honor of his father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. It was known as Gallaudet College for the next 84 years. Now, it's known as Gallaudet University and my good friend, I. King Jordan, is the first deaf President of the school.

Assistive Technology for Football?!?!?!?!?!?!?

In the early 1890's my school had a great football team, but there was one small problem. It wasn't winning any games, because the other team knew what we were going to do next! And something had to be done about that. Some of the players form a circle and, bending over, talk about what play the team was going to use next. Since those players couldn't talk, someone invented an oversize drum. A person would bang on that drum at different paces much like the Morse code principle and the play began. Okay, try this. Place your hand on a table or something like that, close your eyes, have some one tap on the table. Do you feel the vibration? That's how deaf players in football start. Basketball and ice hockey probably followed the same principal after those games were invented.

So, next time you go to a game you can say somebody who was deaf applied a new kind of ³sign language" to the sports we love all our lives.

Until next time, Adios Amigos!!

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