Deaf coach stays strong in face of challenges
CINCINNATI — Before every Colerain girls soccer game, coach Felicia Waldock approaches the referees to introduce herself.
Some of them remember her from her high school career at Oak Hills High School in Cincinnati, where she finished as the school’s third all-time scoring leader. Some of the referees remember her from a previous game she’s coached. But a few referees haven’t met her yet.
When that happens, she hands the referee a roster and also tells them she’s deaf. Waldock faced adversity during her playing career, but that doesn't compare to what she’s faced as a coach, things that make even her athletes want to come to her defense. First, it’s important to know how she got to that point.
Waldock is working on turning around Colerain girls soccer’s track record. Between 2016 and 2018, Colerain never finished the season with more than two conference wins or higher than eighth place in the 10team Greater Miami Conference.
Colerain hired Waldock for the 2019 season and finished the year in eighth place in the conference again. One month into Waldock’s second year, the Cardinals improved to 1-0-1 in the GMC and 3-2-1 overall.
“No. 1 most important thing is the culture,” Waldock said. “Without culture, you can’t win in high school. You don’t get to choose who your players are. It’s amazing to see what the girls have done from last year to this year.”
Waldock has played soccer since she was three years old and participated in leagues with much older players. In 2001, she started at Oak Hills High School, where she scored 15 goals and was one of the first freshmen to ever be named first-team all-gmc.
In college, she played her first two seasons at South Carolina and led the team in scoring her sophomore season. Waldock transferred to Purdue, where she played for a Big Ten championship team that was ranked No. 4 in the nation.
“If you know the game well, you know where to get the ball,” Waldock said. “For me, I didn’t know any different because I was born deaf. It was always a challenge for other players to get used to me. If they’re wide open and they call for the ball, obviously I couldn’t hear them. That was never an issue for me.”
Waldock didn’t feel like her soccer career was finished after college, so she sent her Purdue highlights to a soccer agent who lined her up with a league in Finland. She led that league in scoring and later won three gold medals for the U.S. Women’s Deaf Soccer team in the Deaflympics and the Deaf World Cup.
Once she retired from soccer in 2012, Waldock started looking for a job in coaching, which didn’t come easily at first. When she lived in Texas, she worked at Texas A&M International as a volunteer assistant coach. Then she moved back home to Cincinnati and worked on the University of Cincinnati’s operations staff where she helped book hotels and transportation for the team.
Waldock, who now is an American Sign Language teacher at Lakota West High School, then started coaching club soccer for Ohio Elite in Cincinnati. After just a few months, Colerain offered Waldock the head coaching position.
Waldock said she knew Colerain’s players would have to be more confident for the team to perform better in the 2020 season. So, throughout the winter, Waldock met with the soccer team during lunch to instill some belief in them.
“Believe in each other and believe in yourself,” Waldock told them. “That gave our seniors confidence for this year. They’re whole different players now.”
Now in her second season at Colerain, Waldock said the team has completely gotten used to her coaching style.
“I just had to get to know them and get used to my voice,” Waldock said. “I told them, I don’t care if you can understand me (yet), we’ll get there.”
It hasn’t been as easy for her on game day. Recently, Waldock introduced herself to a referee and handed him Colerain’s varsity roster.
“He said ‘dadadadadada,’ like he started mimicking me,” Waldock said. “That happens a lot, but I respond by saying, ‘I’m deaf.’ Usually, the response is ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.’
“His response was not that. He laughed it off and said ‘I know.’ It wasn’t an expected response, and I didn’t expect anything of it as the game went on.”
Colerain led in the game, and Waldock continued to coach up her players, shouting orders like “push up,” or “watch No. 9.”
On one play, the opposing team had a throw-in from the sidelines and an opposing player ran 15 yards to throw in the ball, which is not allowed in soccer.
“I said to the ref, ‘Hey, where’s she going?’ ” Waldock said.
“And the ref on the side said, ‘Could you please put that coach back in her place? She’s been driving me crazy the whole game.’
“He didn’t like me from the beginning of the game just because he couldn’t understand me.”
Waldock said she’s had a few similar incidents during her coaching career. This season, another coach said something to the refs about Waldock screaming loudly.
When that happened, several Colerain players ran over to that coach to explain that Waldock is deaf.
“I’ve gone through that my whole life, but to put my players in a position to defend me, that’s not OK,” Waldock said. “They’re 14, 15 and 16 years old, and they’re hearing grown men say something like that. It’s just not OK.”
Waldock says she’s never “blown up” at a referee. While she may say something during the course of the game – “Yeah, I talk to the refs; I’m a coach,” she says – Waldock will only say something when she sees her players are being treated unfairly.
Waldock said she loves coaching, especially being a head coach and running a high school program the way she thinks is best. But she said she hopes referees and coaches receive more education.
“I’m not really sure that we can change how people are, maybe become more educated,” Waldock said. “People should know I am deaf and not judge my voice. If you don’t know what I’m saying, don’t assume that I’m yelling at you.”