Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman may be legally deaf — the first legally deaf offensive player in NFL history — but he isn’t letting that get in the way of his journey to the Super Bowl.
“Let’s say I don’t have my hearing aids in and someone is talking to me, I know they’re talking but I can’t clarify what they’re saying,” Coleman told FOXSports.com in a recent interview. “Basically, that’s what the hearing aids do, they enhance or amplify it, so I can truly understand it. All I hear is like a bunch of mumbling and humming. That’s what I hear.”
Coleman, who played college football at UCLA, went undrafted in 2012. He signed on with the Vikings in training camp, but was part of the final cuts. In December 2012, the Seahawks signed him to their practice squad, and he survived cutdowns and made the Seahawks’ 53-man roster this season.
Coleman made an immediate impact to start the season, catching three passes for 30 yards in the Seahawks’ season-opening win at Carolina, then catching his first NFL touchdown on a deflected pass in a Monday night win against the Saints on Dec. 2.
He explained how he is able to communicate with his teammates on the football field: Quarterback Russell Wilson turns and mouths the audibles to Coleman if a play needs to be changed.
“It’s my way of adapting,” Coleman said. “When one of your senses goes down, your others kind of help out. You pick up different habits to help, and I think lip reading just came to me. When people started talking, I just look at their lips and start to read them.
“Next thing you know that’s what I do all the time.”
Coleman’s uplifting story is captured in a spine-tingling new Duracell commercial: