MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- A Fridley family filed suit this week against the Spring Lake Park Panther Youth Football Association over their Deaf son’s participation in the league. They believe the nonprofit should’ve paid for interpreters and allowed the family to use a special drum to signal the start of play.
Nine-year-old Dov Nathanson says he loves to play football. “I just think it’s cool. I love to tackle people it’s exciting,” he said.
Dov and and his brother Galvin are both Deaf, and they’ve played football with hearing children for years. But last year, the football association said he and his brother Galvin could no longer use a special drum that helps them know when the play is starting.
“Without it, I couldn’t feel it i couldn’t feel the vibration,” Dov said. “I was never ready for the play.”
Parents David and Gloria Nathanson are also upset that the association said they wouldn’t pay for an interpreter for their son’s last year. They say it’s the association’s responsibility.
“We were very frustrated nobody would listen,” David Nathanson said. “It was like we didn’t have a voice.”
Phil Richard, President of the Spring Lake Park Panther Youth Football Association, says the drum made it interfered with the game for other players, and that the family should be responsible for providing their own interpreter.
“It really just comes down to funding. It’s expensive,” Richard said. “We finished out year with $4,000. The cost of an interpreter is double that, and the law, we feel, protects us from that.”
Both Dov and Galvin plan to register for football again this year. The family says they want the policy changed–to allow Deaf players fair play.
“We’re just hoping that in the future that we will feel included,” Gloria Nathanson said.
Also mentioned in the lawsuit is a claim that David Nathanson was denied the opportunity to coach either of his sons teams last year, which he believes is because he’s also Deaf. He had coached three previous years.
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