A place to call home
For Oklahoma School for the Deaf students, football and other sports is a safe haven for a life that often separates them from their families.
Wearing a ball cap backward and a green jersey tucked into his cargo pants, Braiden Hilton carried two footballs as his teammates stretched.
The 110-pound senior can’t put on football pads, but that has not dampened his love of the game.
Born 14 weeks premature alongside twin brother Conner, both had medical issues from the start. Braiden was deaf and Conner was blind. Braiden’s feet never properly developed either, keeping him off the field at Oklahoma School for the Deaf.
He’s still involved as the manager following some convincing from his family and his coach.
“I stay pretty busy,” Hilton said through an interpreter. “As the water boy and manager, I trade out the balls, get fresh towels and I work hard.”
In the school 86 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, everybody has a place.
They can be a football star. They can be a manager. They can be a cheerleader. They can be a homecoming king or queen.
At OSD, a football game is pure, whether under lights for a homecoming like no other last month at Sulphur High School or on a day like this Saturday afternoon when OSD hosts Life Christian in the season finale.
Fans cheer, but sound primarily comes from speakers to announce homecoming royalty. Cheerleaders bring life with the beat of a drum. The national anthem is brought to life through interpretation and sign language. Football players communicate with their hands.
“I wish I would have had a place like this,” OSD football coach Lawson Pair said.
Pair, a coach at the school for 26 years, understands all too well the struggles of being deaf as a youngster. Growing up in Louisiana, he was a standout baseball player, but socially he struggled.
There was no option like OSD, where he’s coached multiple sports, led the academic team and taught computer technology.
“We’re able to impact a lot of students,” Pair said, pointing to a crowd of hundreds of alumni. “You saw all of these people here and almost all of them are students of mine in the past. I’ve been here a long time. That’s very inspiring for them to come.
“It’s an anchor here in the deaf community for them to come to keep in touch with each other.”
OSD is a residential school for deaf and hardof-hearing students. Students from all over the state live in dorms and some live in dorms or live off campus.
Primarily funded by the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services, the school is a magnet with sports ranging from volleyball to football to basketball to track. Often, away games are out of state. Travel is by bus or plane to places as far as Minnesota.
Students are maturing and learning, but they are doing it often away from their families for weeks to months at a time. That creates another living area and another family bond that often lasts a lifetime.
“They just keep coming back,” OSD superintendent Larry Hawkins said during OSD’s 48-20 homecoming win last month. “This is pretty much their home, at least a second home.”
••• Dylan Evans and Gloria Brewer found each other for an overdue embrace near the red track surrounding Sulphur High School’s football field.
It was the first time in nearly four months Evans had seen his mom, who lives 151 miles away in Idabel. An 18-year-old senior who once scored 17 touchdowns in a game, Evans now lives with a family in Sulphur while he finishes his final year at OSD.
“They’ve got me involved now in doing rodeo,” Evans said through an interpreter. “That’s really cool. They’ve been strongly supporting and helping me. They’re a strong influence on my future and a strong impact on the direction of my life.”
Karen Standifer, Evans’ house mom, has been involved with OSD since college. Now a teacher and assistant cheerleading coach, her grandparents are also alumni and one of her sons attended OSD for a year.
So, taking in Evans was an easy call.
Life wasn’t always easy in Idabel. Anger issues had developed in the past. Since he moved for one final year, Evans has changed for the better.
“He’s a different kid,” Standifer said. “I can’t tell you how many teachers and staff have commented he’s different. He’s happy.”
••• Tyler Manek got joy out of flattening the Kansas defender trying to make the tackle.
Manek, a junior fullback and linebacker, is the biggest player on the team, standing taller than 6 feet. He bruises opponents and is regarded as one of the top deaf players in the country after earning AllAmerican status last year.
“I enjoy it,” he said through an interpreter. “I like running over people.”
Manek was born in Billings, a small community that doesn’t offer the sport. He’s attended OSD since kindergarten, but his home life consisted of a few moves.
Football has been the constant.
“I don’t think that he would be the young man that he is given his home situation if it wasn’t for the school that he attended,” his aunt and guardian Christie Hamby said. “Football is everything to him. It keeps him motivated.”
Hamby is new to this. She and her husband live in Sapulpa. They raised two kids who lived at home. Just a few months ago, they gained guardianship of Manek.
They drove to see homecoming last month. They’ll return Saturday and tour campus for the first time.
“We’re pretty excited to make a six-hour drive for a football game,” Hamby said.
••• Saturday morning, Crystal Hilton and her family will load up in a car and drive 155 miles from Keota to Sulphur.
Braiden will be honored for senior day as a member of the team.
He spent the past three years watching his twin brother wrestle for Oklahoma School for the Blind in Muskogee. The two are close, but separated by 162 miles most days.
Braiden shakes off the distance. He’s found a way to thrive on his own at OSD as the team manager and student.
“I’ve learned to read and write and work hard academically,” Hilton said with a huge smile through an interpreter.
Don’t count out Hilton as one of the hundreds of alumni that return for a football homecoming following graduation.
OSD will always be home.
“When he’s there, it’s like you see him come alive,” Crystal said. “The minute you get on campus with him, it’s his world.”