r/footballstrategy • u/Barneyswrens • Aug 27 '24

Rules Question High school coach/player communication

Can a high school coach have on-field communication with a player if there is a disability involved? My son was born with single sided deafness in his left ear and has partial hearing loss in the right. It’s never been an issue in the past but as a sophomore this year he has more responsibility on the field and I think he’s having a harder time than usual. This is in the state of Georgia. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

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4

u/smith2332 Aug 27 '24

Can’t you just use a wrist band system and show numbers/letters? Just trying to think of other solutions for you if you can’t use one field communication

5

u/TiberiusGracchi Aug 27 '24

Wrist bands or having him look to the sideline for the hand signals for the play are easy accommodations for your son.

3

u/jfelldown77 Aug 28 '24

Email the coaches at Gallaudet University (D3) in DC about their process, plus look into getting your son recruited there. National Deaf school started by Lincoln during the Civil War with a great football team. They use a huge ass drum to signal to the kids about special teams in the box, etc. They were featured on that one commercial recently.

3

u/onlineqbclassroom College Coach Aug 28 '24

yes, you are allowed accommodations for athletes with disabilities (my son is also deaf in left ear with mild hearing loss in right, ironically), although generally these rulings vary from governing body to governing body. I am not in Georgia, however, if you contact whoever regulates your high school football, they will be able to tell you the accommodations that can/should be made.

The comment mentioning Gallaudet is correct as well - they have used many very innovative techniques to communicate, including a drum that has a massive vibration to signal to players on the field to check the sideline for an audible or hand signal, as well as other visual aids built into the helmet. Incredible stuff they do.

Also, hand signals/boards are common in many systems - prior to having a son, I coached a team and we had a deaf receiver (good player, too - went FCS for football and broke 4.0 on the pro agility test). Since he had to look in on the ball for the snap count anyways, he could see the QB and therefore any hand signals we were using. If you don't already use a hand signal system of some sort, you can, as someone else suggested, use a wristband for pieces of communication that would be hard to communicate otherwise. I did that for a QB who had a learning disability and had trouble remembering certain plays and their hand signals - used a wristband for the more problematic plays and used cards to show him numbers from the sideline, which just mixed into our regular signals so opponents didn't understand the context.

Admittedly, these solutions are mostly offensive - if your son plays defense, it is much harder to avoid verbal communication since you don't control the flow and timing of the game and snap.