DeafBut Not Defeated How One Man's Terrible LOSS Has Given Other RaCQuetball Players A Tremendous Gain by Fred stetson
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ou might say the clock is ticking for Ron Burdo. The 43-year old racquetball professional has a serious physical disability-a 95 percent hear ing loss-and he expects to lose all ability to hear within five to ten years. "When you lose your hearing, your speech starts to go with it;' says Burdo, who teaches racquetball at the Olym piad, an 1,800-member club in South Burlington, Vermont. "If you can't hear the words you're speaking, your speech starts to get sloppy ..." Burdo already has a slight speech impediment and he wears a hearing aid at all times, except while playing in a tournament. When you talk with him, you can see the strain in his eyes, as he reads your lips, deciphers your words and puts your sentences together. Tele phone calls, where visual cues are ab sent, are difficult. But his disability seldom slows him down. Burdo competes on the Open level. And, during the peak season, he teaches an average of 30 lessons a week to racquetball players of all levels. "As far as we're concerned, we feel very lucky to have Ron work for us;' says Bob Tourney, manager of the Olympiad. "He's probably one of the best instruc tors in the Northeast:' Obstacles Overcome To reach that level of accomplish ment, Burdo has overcome difficult hurdles that others have found forbid ding. Many young people with hearing losses feel stigmatized; they withdraw
and lose the ability to communicate; their words become monosyllables. Not only has Burdo maintained his speak ing ability, he has excelled in a de manding profession. Like many others with hearing dis abilities, Burdo has tried, from the time he began losing his hearing at age six, to prove himself with visually-oriented skills. While a student in Glens Falls, New York elementary and secondary schools, he earned As and high Bs in math and geometry. In the eighth grade, he began to ex pand his vocabulary by pouring over library books, studying frogs and their life cycles, a favorite childhood interest. "I remember spending a lot of time with wet feet and a frog in my hand;' he laughs. Similarly, sports such as baseball, handball and, later, racquet ball, became more than a recreation. Through them, he began his own self education. At the same time, he learned lip reading, the tedious process of creating sentences by watching a speaker's mouth. Sometimes, when people fail to enunciate, or when they look the other way, or when they say words-such as bat, mat and pat-that cause them to form identical mouth configurations, the task of figuring out what they're saying is nearly impossible. The only way to do it, Burdo says, is by deduction, by guessing the missing words based on their context. To do all this and carryon a normal conversation
'After being forced to visual ize things for more than 37 years, his eyesight and per ception are acute. He spots awkward swings and other faults in seconds!
February 1986/ National Racquetball /15