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| San Antonio Express-News |
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| Sports Page 1C |
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Deaf to her disability
World champion S.A. woman succeeds in athletics despite
her loss of hearing. |
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| Aditi Kinkhabwala EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF
WRITER |
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| Publication Date : July 3, 2001 |
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The teachers at Ridgeview Elementary
were concerned.
Recess always had been the same: the girls on one side of
the playground gossiping, the boys on the other, competing.
But Jerilyn Keller didn't seem to get it - she insisted
on going off with the boys to play sports.
"The girls would just sit around and talk," she said. "Of
course, I preferred the boys."
"Of course," because she loved sports. And "of course,"
because listening to chatter didn't interest her.
Jerilyn Keller is deaf. Completely, profoundly and entirely.
High-pitched squeals, deeply low laughter, and everything
in between - she can't hear any of it. But way back at Ridgeview
Elementary, in the midst of the hearing world, she learned
there was a place that none of that mattered.
"I think the deaf like sports, because it's about seeing,
and paying attention to body language and expression," Keller's
mother, Velma, said. "Jeri can do that."
And more. Now 35, Jerilyn Keller has played her life as
she has athletics - as if differences aren't the same as
obstacles.
In less than a week, Keller begins the journey to her second
World Games for the Deaf. Four years ago in Copenhagen,
Denmark, she captured the gold medal in the women's singles
division of bowling. This month, she heads to Rome, where
she's looking to defend her title.
Having picked up the game in 1992 as a social opportunity,
the former Lee High School volleyball player has racked
up wins on both the deaf and hearing bowling circuits.
"Her skills just keep getting better," said Keller's coach,
Don Jonietz. "She caught on to the timing part of the game
faster than any other bowler I've ever seen."
Keller sheepishly admitted that her deafness may actually
be an advantage, but Jonietz warned against underestimating
his pupil's potential.
Placing Keller in the top 15 percent of the city's bowlers
- hearing or not - Jonietz said: "She could probably go
out on the pro level. She has the potential."
"The thing about Jeri," Jonietz said, "is that she doesn't
give up."
Nor do her parents. Velma contracted rubella (German measles)
eight weeks into her pregnancy, causing auditory nerve damage
in her fifth and final child, Jeri. Keller had some residual
hearing initially, but that was all lost by adolescence.
Velma and Harold enrolled Jeri in Sunshine Cottage
School for the Deaf, where she learned to lip-read and speak.
After that, Keller became one of the first deaf pupils in
the North East School District, going from Ridgeview to
Eisenhower Middle School to Lee. It wasn't until she was
13 that she learned sign language, and she met her first
interpreter as a freshman at San Antonio College.
"My parents made us take her everywhere," said Donna Schneider,
Keller's eldest sibling and only sister. "She had to experience
everything."
Family baby or not, Keller was never coddled either, Schneider
said.
"My mom's probably carried a cross for her," she said, "but
with three boys in front of her, Jeri was never cut any
slack."
And with that sort of upbringing, she's never expected any.
Keller has been a full-time property casualties claims clerk
at USAA for 14 years. She owns her own truck and her own
home, relying on others for nothing but occasional sponsorship
donations to meet competition costs.
Though she has a Telephone Device for the Deaf (TDD machine),
a fax machine, an Internet-wired computer and a wireless
e-mail pager, she shuns America's favorite electronic device,
the television. Keller is too busy to sit at home.
She plays softball and golf, and only recently allowed her
training for the World Games to cut umpiring for the American
Softball Association out of her schedule.
With the assertiveness characteristic of the youngest clawing
for footing in a family of seven, Keller has engendered
a presence of authority - both as a player and an official.
"On the team, Jeri was like a coach on the field. She'd
position players and is such an athlete that any time a
ball got near her, she got an out," said Tim O'Neill, who
coached a team Keller played on several years ago and also
has umpired alongside her.
"She has all sorts of confidence about her," he said, "and
it makes you overlook that she's deaf."
"I had no problem with people arguing with me," Keller said
with a laugh, "because I'm the umpire, so of course I'm
right."
Schneider thinks that confidence stems from her sister's
involvement with sports, saying her parents always encouraged
that participation.
"My parents raised me like a normal person, so I don't remember
ever not being normal," Keller said. "Sports keep me busy,
and they help me show that deaf people can do these things."
"I want to show the hearing world I'm deaf and I'm proud,"
she said. "It really doesn't matter if you're hearing or
not - we're all involved in the same game here."
akinkhabwala@express-news.net
To help finance Jeri's trip to Rome, contact Velma Keller
at hvkeller@satx.rr.com or (210) 492-0288
Jerilyn Keller
Age: 35
Bowling average: 188
Coming up: World Games for the Deaf, Rome (July 22-Aug.
2). In 1997, Keller won medals in women's singles (gold),
three-member team (bronze) and five-member team (bronze).
Recent tournament results:
Great Lake Deaf Women's Bowling Tournament, Detroit (April)
- first place, women's singles
Southwest Tournament, Memphis (May) - first place, doubles;
second place, all events with a handicap; third place, women's
singles |
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