In Real Life: Stories From The Field
- On the Swim Team -

As a freshman in high school, Jonathon joined the Rocky Mountain High School Swim Team. Jon is profoundly deaf, speaks for himself, and of course cannot wear hearing aids in the pool. His school has provided him with a sign language interpreter for all practices as well as his meets. His coach, after watching the swimming during the past Olympics, requested a strobe light to start him at the various meets. While the hearing swimmers hear the commands and the gun to start, we use a tap system on Jon's heel to signal when to "take your mark" and then the strobe will flash at the same time as the gun sounds. The strobe is wonderful and really provides him with a good, fair start - the same as all the other competitors. It is easily hooked up to the timing system and the team carries it with them from meet to meet.

Jon is finding high school swimming to be very rewarding and it provides a nice social as well as athletic outlet in his young life.