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She uses her hands--and her heart--to speak to the deaf
Woman interprets for deaf students at Massaponax High
BY KAREN BOLIPATA
Date published: 11/11/2007
BY KAREN BOLIPATA
The wind seared her fingers, but Nancy Hayden couldn't cover them. If she did, how would John know which play to follow?
It was Oct. 29, one of the first cold nights of fall. The Massaponax High School Panthers were playing against the Stafford High School Indians, and Hayden stood on the sideline.
It's where she feels most at home. Football is different when you're on the field, she said.
In the bleachers, you watch the game when you feel like it. On the field, you watch to survive unscathed.
She remembers her first game at Massaponax, when a football player tackled her while she wasn't looking. She won't make that mistake again.
On this recent Monday she paced the sidelines aligning herself with John Van Wey, No. 64. Whether or not John was looking, her fingers trailed the coach's words. She buried them in her pockets between plays, lamenting that the heat packs in them didn't work.
But gloves weren't an option. They would hamper her movement or, if she chose a color too dark, make her fingers difficult to see.
And John, a 17-year-old varsity football player, relied on her fingers to make his next move. He has been partially deaf since he was 2.
Hayden interprets for hearing-impaired students at Massaponax High School. She also has interpreted for Spotsylvania County Parks and Recreation in the summer.
But before anything else, she said, she was her father's "first son."
Hayden attributes her love of sports to her father, Lynn Soaper, with whom she shares a close bond. When she was little, her father chauffeured kids in the county to play sports.
Her father, Hayden said, is the reason she became an interpreter. He is deaf, and she and her family know of his struggles growing up. As a boy he was sent away to school in Staunton and never was home for the holidays. Even at home, he found it hard to communicate.
Signing is her first language, Hayden said. She and her siblings all learned how to talk to their father when they were little.
"He was so put off from the rest of the world when he was young," she said. "We made him part of the hearing world."
As an interpreter, she helps make sure no one else feels that isolation.
| NAME: Nancy Hayden
AGE: 53
FAMILY: married to high school sweetheart, Emmitt Darrell Hayden, for 34 years; three children
RESIDENCE: Caroline County
PLACE OF BIRTH: Mary Washington Hospital
EDUCATION: graduated from Spotsylvania High School in 1973
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Date published: 11/11/2007
Most recent reader comments:
Great Story!!
(posted by
BandMom
, Nov. 16, 2007 9:13 am)
I think there should be more stories like this... people need some good news to go along with all of the heartaches, crime and punishment in todays world. OK Yeah so I know Nancy! She IS my sister, but I think she does a wonderful job teaching these kids. We know what our dad went through when he was younger, and what we went through being his kids. We never complained, and if people stared, we offered to teach them the language!! Keep up the great work Nan, we loves ya!!
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