Sept. 30, 2009
PHILADELPHIA - Charles Kieffer. Joe Verdeur. Hugh Foley. Stan Cwiklinski. These four men have three things in common – 1) they are La Salle alumnus; 2) they competed in the Olympics; and 3) they won gold.
In the great history of La Salle, the Explorers have seen these four men represent the United States and bring home gold in the greatest sporting spectacle in the world. In all, 17 former Lasallians have competed in the Olympic Games and only two other – Diane Moyer and Kathy McGahey – earned medals, taking home bronze.
Many other student-athletes have competed in other international competitions; however it is the newest member, Women’s Soccer junior Kelly O'Steen, who recently returned home from Taipei, Taiwan after competing in the Deaflympics, helping Team USA to gold.
“It was the best experience of my life,” said O’Steen. “To be able to stand up there and receive a gold medal and have your own national anthem played over the loud speaker is such a tremendous experience.
“Everyone I’ve been talking to has been saying, ‘Wow! I wish I could do something like that!’ I definitely want to go back and do it as many times as I can, as long as my knees hold out. And if I can’t play anymore, I’d like to go back as a coach.”
“We were extremely excited to hear that Kelly was bringing home the gold medal from the Deaflympics," said La Salle Women’s Soccer Head Coach Paul Royal. “As much as our staff and team had missed having Kelly around, we are so proud of her wonderful accomplishment, however, we couldn’t wait to have her back home in a La Salle uniform.”
“We could not be anything but extremely proud of her and this accomplishment,” said Eileen O’Steen, Kelly’s mom. “As with many things in her life, Kelly showed her determination and a goal-directed approach to follow this through, dealing with lots of obstacles along the way.
“To watch the medal ceremony on live video – it was incredible for us and made it all worthwhile. We wish we had been able to be there in person.”
As much as the time spent in Taipei was one of the greatest she had ever known, after winning the gold-medal game, O’Steen was ready to come home. She wanted to get back to Philadelphia, get back to La Salle Women’s Soccer, and get back to classes.
Her Explorer teammates had something up their sleeves, though, on her return to campus.
“I talked with Ally Kenney a couple of times online, and we talked about what I wanted my first meal to be when I got home. I wanted Chipotle, because I hadn’t had it for a long time,” said O’Steen. “So, when we got back from dinner, all my roommates said they didn’t have their keys, and I had mine, so I opened the door.
“There was a big surprise party waiting for me and all my teammates were there. It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad they did it, because it reminded me of how much I missed them and it truly showed how much we are like one big family!”
Speaking of family, O’Steen credits her older brother Tim for getting her involved in the sport. He started playing when he was four and she was always around the game and, in turn, also started around the same age.
She also highly praises Neal Sawyer, a coach she started working with at the age of seven, for developing her into the soccer player she is today.
“He taught me the technical aspects of the game and he has just been one of the best coaches I’ve ever had,” she says. “I’ve always looked for aspects of him in every coach that I have had since then.”
However, it was a decision her parents made early on that has helped Kelly become the person she is today.
“I’ve always been deaf and my parents decided not to raise me with sign language, because it wasn’t necessary and I’m glad they did,” she said. “I’m a better student since I don’t have to rely on signing, however I do want to become fluent in it.
“But my parents never considered me to be special with a disability. They wanted to raise me like everyone else and I try not to refer to myself as that.”
“We found out she was severely hard of hearing at the age of one, but with hearing aids, she had close to normal hearing,” said Eileen. “We were very fortunate to have good results with hearing aids and that’s not always possible.
“She was already developing normal speech at that time, so the decision to concentrate on speech was an easy one.”
According to her parents, O’Steen learned a little bit of sign language early on, but they found that it was not necessary and quickly stopped using it because it was easier for her to talk.
They also praise speech therapy in her early years and great advancements in technology for hearing aids.
“It was definitely not easy to put $2,000 worth of equipment on a one-year old and tell her to go have a normal toddler life, but that’s essentially what we did,” said Eileen. “We never allowed her to look at this as a disability but used the analogy that some kids wear glasses to see better, you wear hearing aids to hear better.
“Now the technology has improved with computer chips in the hearing aids that allow adjustments and fine-tuning, of course, the cost is up to $5,000 now, but it is all worth it. What’s that commercial? A gold medal. Priceless!”
However, getting involved with USA Deaf Soccer was all credited to Alex Warren, who now attends Lehigh.
“I found out from her, but unfortunately for her, when it came time to audiograms getting done and qualifying for the team, she wasn’t deaf enough in one ear,” said O’Steen. “But, she’s the one that told me to email the coach and the captains to see if I could come try out.”
O’Steen had been going to the camps the past three years, which started out in California and are now held in Florida. She missed out on participating in the Deaflympics in Australia in 2005, when the USA competed in its first games and won gold.
She did help them to defend their gold medal in 2009, as she started every game in Taipei for Team USA, and scored three goals in a victory over Denmark.
“It was very rewarding to have the US name on my jersey and just being able to say I played a game against the best from Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, is incredible,” said O’Steen. “Also being able to score a goal is something I will never forget.
“Playing the final game in the stadium was amazing. Having people from every country, every sport in prime time, to be able to look up in the stands to see all those people, it was great!”
But for someone who uses hearing aids and was not raised with sign language, the question remains, how did O’Steen adapt.
“We were told to take our hearing aids out at the hotel and not use them anytime we went out,” she said. “I am a very fluid speaker, because I’ve been raised in the hearing world, but to some people, I would be seen as not qualifying for the team, so I didn’t talk a lot when we were around officials just to be on the safe side.”
“In the games nobody could hear anything. Flags were raised all around, so that people knew when to stop. It was a huge difference; you can’t hear the whistle blow and people yelling to stop. I had to gradually adjust when I first got there, because there was so much less communication on the field.
“There were a lot of times when I caught myself yelling ‘Man-on!’ I probably did it at least 20 times. With me not being fluent in sign language, if I didn’t know what word I wanted to say, I would make something up that was close to it and hope that the girl I was talking to could figure it out.”
After “being treated like celebrities” during her two-plus weeks with her US teammates at the Deaflympics, the Speech-Language-Hearing Science major, who is also earning a minor in psychology, now has to return to her normal life of classes, practice, homework and collegiate games.
But nothing will be the same, since no matter what she does from this point on, she can always use this experience to help her in the future.
As her mom puts it, “she will be a great role model to the young children that she treats. If you set your goals, dream your dreams, anything is possible. Hearing loss need not be an obstacle.”
