Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: football

  • When Fear Holds You Back

    “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

    This quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is something that I remind myself of every now and then.  Fear is often the emotion behind the reason we hold back.  “What if…”

    One of the hardest things for me to do with my boys was to let them play football.  It wasn’t that I detested the sport (slamming others to the ground, ugh!), it was the idea that they could lose more hearing by butting their heads into someone else’s.  We have a family history of people losing their hearing from knocking around our heads:

    For many years, my family was unique when it came to stories about hearing loss. Everyone in my family, for five generations, was born with hearing in the normal range. My Mom started losing her hearing as a teen. She became deaf at the age of 27.

    “I was at a family BBQ and all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t hear anything,” Mom shared. “I could see that lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.” Just like that, my Mom became deaf. Her five siblings also were deaf or hard of hearing.

    I have four older siblings. My sister, Linda, was almost three years old when she fell off of a chair and hit her head on the corner of a baseboard. Later that week, my Mom noticed that she wasn’t responding to people. She began to stop talking. She was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss. My brother, Dennis, grew up with normal hearing and at the age of 36, he was hit on the head by a wooden beam at work and woke up in the hospital with severe hearing loss. My sister, Jeanie, grew up with a unilateral hearing loss and around the same age as my mom, began losing more hearing. In her mid-forties, she slipped on a rug and became profoundly deaf. My brother, Kenny, developed a moderate hearing loss in his late 30’s.

    I became very sick with a high fever as a child and my parents believe it was that illness which triggered my hearing loss when I was in elementary school. My first hearing aid was given to me when I was nine– but I only wore when at school. I found that it caused headaches and tinnitus and I often took it off after school and never touched it during the summer. When I was 19, I was water skiing on my bare feet at a high speed and fell sideways into the water. For weeks, I thought I just couldn’t get the water out of my ear. I had become profoundly deaf. From that point on, hearing aids were a constant thing in my life. Years later, my brother Kenny also lost some hearing from barefooting.

    Whenever I would share my family’s story about how we all became deaf and hard of hearing, people would be incredulous at the events that lead to hearing loss. “Y’all need to stop banging your heads,” one person remarked.

    Joe and I had long, deep discussions about whether or not to let the boys play football.   We both agreed that we didn’t want this gene to hold our family back– after all, my Mom went deaf in the middle of a conversation–she had done nothing to provoke the hearing loss.   My sister did not agree with our decision, she felt we were taking too much of a risk in allowing the boys to play a contact sport.  The kids have always known they could lose more hearing at any time, but I didn’t want them tiptoeing through life.

    Last week, I found myself facing a little bit of fear that surprised the heck out of me.  I was up in Wisconsin spending three days barefooting with Joann O’Connor. We were kicking back after a great day of footin and had just finished dinner.  Joann casually suggested that I try some wake crossing the next day.  All of a sudden, I felt like the wind was knocked out of me.  “I don’t know about that,” I said.  “After all, that’s how I ended up falling and going deaf.”

    Like I said, it surprised the heck out of me.  I had long ago accepted the transition from hard of hearing to deaf and was quite comfortable with my life.  There was a little tiny piece inside of me that wanted to hang on to the little bit of hearing that I had left with hearing aids.  I already knew what it was like to be stone deaf once the hearing aids hit the nightstand.  Was I ok with being stone deaf if I whacked my head again and all of it went poof?

    Joann and I discussed it and I told her if I lost the bit of hearing that was left, I’d be ok with it.  I still wasn’t sure if I was going to tackle any wake crossing though.  Heck, I spent the entire summer trying to conquer a deep water start and I just wanted to learn to get back up on the water.  I had spent the afternoon trying one deep water start after another with no success.

    It was 6:30 a.m. when Joann and I reached for the wetsuits and headed for the boat.  “Here, try the shoe skis,” Joann suggested.   No sooner did I stand up on the shoe skis then my feet went off in two different directions and I face planted.

    “Hey, you stood up too fast!” Joann explained.  I gritted my teeth and leaned back in the water for a second try.  This time, I patiently planted my feet and got up slowly.  I could see Joann grinning from the boat.

    I looked at the wake and all of a sudden I said to myself, “What the heck!”  I went for it.  I crossed over once, crossed over twice and by the third time… I was grinning back at Joann.

    “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

    Good ole Eleanor was right.

  • My Son, The Football Player


    Early last year, my oldest son David, a sophomore in high school, announced that he wanted to play football.

    Inwardly, I cringed. Football is not a sport that I’m fond of. At least not anymore. I used to love watching football games with the hubby years ago. For several years, I was the hubby’s sounding board as he anguished over his fantasy football draft picks and sought my input on which quarterback to add to his line up. As we added babies number two and three to the mix, I found myself deep into diaper changes and less into men crashing into each other on TV.

    When the oldest was about ten, the hubby found a new recruit into his Fantasy Football line up. David began showing an interest in football after discovering his father animatedly yelling at the TV on Sundays. And Saturdays. And some Thursdays. And of course, on Monday Night Football.

    Woosh. The hubby sucked in Son Number One. Son Number Two joined the hollering fest at the tender age of eight. Every week, from late summer into mid-winter, the boys collaborate with their Dad, discussing the pros and cons of putting in one defense team over another.

    I didn’t mind.

    But then in middle school, the oldest son asked if he could play football for his school.

    I hesitated a bit. Not only did I hate the idea of him bashing into another kid under the guise of a sport– I also had to worry about the possibility of David losing the rest of his hearing due to a rare genetic condition. In my family, several of us became deaf or hard of hearing from hitting our head. My oldest sister was three when she fell, hit her head and became profoundly deaf. My brother was 36-years-old when a wooden beam fell on him at work. He woke up in the hospital two days later with a severe loss. Another sister slipped on a rug and became profoundly deaf. Both my brother and I lost hearing from barefooting (waterskiing on bare feet)–his a mild loss, mine–profound.

    The hubby and I discussed the pros and cons of football and other sports and we decided not to let any of our kids hold back because of this gene. So David played football in middle school for a year. This year, he is playing for the sophomore team on both offense and defense.

    My reluctance isn’t from worrying about losing any of the hearing he has left, I’m more worried about other injuries. In the first game of the year last week, one of the teammates was carried off the field. He has a concussion and temporary paralysis from being hit.

    Do you think I’d be a bad mom if I bribed the kid to stick to Fantasy Football next year?

    Cross-posted at the Chicago Moms Blog.

  • Football, I Hate Football

    I hate football.

    There.  I said it.

    My oldest kiddo is in football camp at his high school.  I tried to talk him out of it, but it fell on deaf ears (oh yeah, pun intended!).  So here I am at Panera Bread each morning as I wait for him to sweat out two hours of hitting other guys.  It’s a 20-minute/half hour drive each way, so it makes no sense for me to head back home after dropping him off.

    When I picked him up yesterday, he was covered head-to-toe in sweat but had a huge smile on his face.  He excitedly told me about the drills and how his neck hurt from craning it to see the interpreter while face-down during some exercise.  He’s the only deaf kid at the camp, but there are two others in different grades.

    “It was hell, Mom, but I loved it!” he said.

    Did I tell you that I hate football?

    I used to actually like it.  Back in college, I would follow football on TV and actually sit next to the hubby and watch entire games.  We even hooked up the tv in the bathroom and watched an entire playoff game when the Bears were playing– from the tub, complete with snacks and drinks.  (What can I say, we were thin and in college back then!  Mom, cover your eyes and don’t read this.)

    Then along came Fantasy Football.  The kids were little.  I still liked football enough to help the hubby decide on a few players to play each Sunday.  I listened to him as he agonized over the player’s fumbles, the low passing scores or an injured player.  I celebrated when his wide receivers racked up yards and scored touchdowns.  I even attended the Fantasy Football drafts to help the guys run the meetings. 

    Good gosh.

    As the boys became older, the hubby sucked them right into football.  The youngest kiddo dog-eared his favorite football book to the point it fell apart in two.   He could tell you which helmet belonged to which team and one year, he was fixated on the Maimi Dolphins and received a Dolphins headrest for his bed.  We’ve got Raider pillows and another bedrest for the oldest kiddo featuring some green team.  (That’s how much I don’t follow football anymore, I can’t tell you the name of the team  even though I pass by his bed every morning.)

    The oldest kiddo played football in eighth grade.  I went to a few games and cringed every time I saw him slam into another kid.   I know why I hate football, it just seems so brutal to me now and I hate seeing the guys hit into each other.  Plus, I’m afraid my kid is gonna get hurt.  Or hurt someone else.

    So this fall, I plan to attend the football games with my dark sunglasses on. 

    Perhaps I can weasle in nap time during the games.