Hard-of-hearing student excels at football with help of supportive team
SAN ANTONIO — Since he was in elementary school, Marshall Perez has been focused on becoming an athlete at Churchill High School.
Through his middle school years, he tackled different sports, but playing football became his goal, his North Star.
Fast-forward to the fall of 2020, and he’s an outside linebacker on the Churchill Chargers varsity football team. At game time, he was focused, keyed in to disrupt the unfolding play. After the quarterback took the snap, the tall, lanky defender was off, dashing across the field to tackle a running back or prevent a pass.
The crowd consensus: No. 25 sure can get to the football.
Between downs, Marshall scans the sideline for defensive coaching staff members: communication facilitator Kara Reekie and defensive coordinator Luke Moody. For the past five years, Reekie has used American Sign Language to signal defensive plays and adjustments to
Marshall from beyond the field of play for every huddle, practice and game.
During 20 years with the North East Independent School District, Reekie, 37, has signed for deaf athletes in all sports and students through their class days and extracurricular activities.
Marshall is one of 17 students on campus who are deaf or hard of hearing. The senior has limited hearing with the use of a hearing aid.
“We love what we do,” Reekie said. “It’s for them, it’s for their success.”
For the past four years, Reekie, head coach Ron Harris, 62, and Moody, 39, have been the support system that’s played a big part in Marshall’s success.
In Marshall’s freshman year, the football coaches welcomed Reekie to their staff.
The first goal for the defensive coordinator and the facilitator was being on the same page for Marshall.
Their work began at the school’s athletic center, hashing out a singular language at a white marker board. They learned that a lot of their signals were ASL symbols.
Reekie had to learn the X’s and O’s of the team’s playbook to help Marshall. She took notes during film review sessions with the team.
On bus rides to and from games, Reekie would sit in the front row, across the aisle from Moody, and go over football terms and defensive schemes.
Marshall sat behind them, ready to study any changes.
And in the process, they standardized signals that had also stymied other players. Their philosophy was one set of signals was for the better and more uniform for everyone.
The coaches called Reekie the “unsung hero” of the team. They said she knew the plays so well she wouldn’t just sign words, but what Marshall was supposed to do on the plays.
Harris said Marshall is the first fully hearing-impaired student he’s had the pleasure of working with in his 40 years of coaching.
“It was challenging, but it wasn’t nearly impossible by any means,” the head coach said. “It was just a matter of him adapting. He’s just living his life, he’s just Marshall.”
Marshall was born able to hear. When he was 4, he developed a high fever that resulted in hearing loss.
“I’m proud of being deaf,” Marshall said, “and no matter what, I
just do it.”
COVID-19 brought other challenges.
Before the pandemic, Marshall read lips during discussions, but protective masks closed off one of his basic communication skills.
He had to adapt during conversations, keying in on body language and Reekie’s aid.
The coaches shifted in-person meetings to online Zoom sessions. The first time the team was able to meet in person was Aug. 24, for strengthening and conditioning sessions.
After practice, Marshall concentrated on memorizing the plays on a visual playbook.
He filed away the team’s signals along with strategies printed on the players’ wristbands.
The coaching staff’s proudest moment for Marshall was seeing the success he had during the 2020 season.
District coaches voted Marshall to first team, all-district on defense.
“People didn’t notice a disability. They just noticed someone who was a football player,” Moody said. “He’s what is right about high school athletics, and the ability to overcome adversity.”