No obstacle too great.
Being legally blind hasn't stopped Clinton's Denuyl.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
BY ROB HOFFMAN
News Sports Reporter
Shortly after Stephen Denuyl was diagnosed with a rare childhood disease that would render him almost completely blind, his mother Bridget and his stepfather Michael Kelley had a conversation about how this would affect the 8-year-old's future.
"We're not going to give him special treatment," Michael told Bridget. "We're going to treat him just like a normal kid."
Nine years later, almost anyone who knows him would be hard pressed to admit that Stephen Denuyl is normal.
Visually impaired, yes. But normal? Emphatically, no. Because what the 17-year-old senior at Clinton High School has accomplished amounts to extraordinary.
How many other teenagers have a 4.09 grad-point average and are valedictorians of their high school graduating class? How many scored 1,430 on their SAT and 33 on their ACT? How many have received what amounts to a full academic scholarship at Western Michigan University?
And, oh yes. How many legally blind teens have played varsity high school football for four years and are one of the senior captains of their track team? And how many were among seven football players statewide picked as finalists for the Michigan High School Athletic Association Scholar Athlete Award?
"I never cease to be amazed by the things he's been able to do," said his mother. "He never sees barriers. He just sees ways around them."
Since he was diagnosed with a juvenile form of macular degeneration, a retinal condition that commonly renders senior citizens sightless but is extremely rare among children, Denuyl has been limited to 20/300 vision - a problem that no glasses or contact lens can correct. The condition has been described by some as the equivalent of looking at the world through glasses covered by crinkled-up cellophane. Most objects are just blurs to Denuyl. Reading is out of the question unless Denuyl uses a magnifying glass on large-print textbooks. Most of the time, he listens to books on tape - one of the rare times that Denuyl, who doesn't use a cane or other mobility tools, breaks free from the conventions of the sighted world.
As for sports, Denuyl has found ways to adapt. Originally a baseball player as a kid (the summer before he was diagnosed, his parents were wondering why he could no longer hit the ball), Denuyl switched gears to accommodate his condition. Any sport that did not require him to see a ball would work. Thus, as a middle schooler, he got involved in track. And he began playing offensive line in football.
"I saw it as the most difficult sport there was," said Denuyl, who recalls deciding between football and golf. "It looked like football would be more of a challenge."
Starting in six of games this season for the Class C Redskins, Denuyl played all over the offensive line. He also occasionally switched to defense, although he admits finding the ball carrier was more difficult than simply smashing into the player lined up in front of him.
"He found ways to make football what it is to him," Clinton head coach Scott McNitt said. "He took great pride in it - as he does in everything."
As in the classroom, where he has learned to listen to teachers extra intently, Denuyl got around his inability to see the playbook or watch game films by nearly memorizing his coaches' verbal instructions.
"A lot of it is asking a lot of questions, being proactive, putting in the extra work and getting a feel for what motions will be effective," Denuyl said.
No, he'll never be an All-American in football. For that matter, Denuyl will never win a state title in track, where he runs both dashes and distance and competes in the two throwing events - again, because sight is not completely required.
"I've never been particularly fast," he said. "But, occasionally, I can throw the discus pretty well."
Being a superstar athlete in the mainstream world has never been why Denuyl has continued to play sports. First, there is the challenge of competing next to fully-sighted athletes. Next, thanks to the conditioning and discipline required from football, Denuyl has gone from being a self-described skinny kid to a more finely toned 6-foot-4, 195-pounder who is "10 times" more athletic that he used to be.
And then there is goalball, which right now is the focus of Denuyl's life. Developed after World War II for veterans with disabling eye injuries, the sport is an amalgamation of soccer, bowling and volleyball. Blindfolded players compete on a nine-by-18-meter gym floor by rolling a ball toward a goal. Opposing players try to stop the ball, which is equipped with bells, by throwing themselves across the floor.
Introduced to the sport as an eighth-grader, Denuyl has become a national-caliber goalball player who was just named to the U.S.. team that will compete in the World Youth Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo., this summer. His goal is to compete for the United States at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. One of the major reasons he plans to attend Western Michigan, where he wants to major in biochemistry, is that Kalamazoo has one of the main goalball training centers in the nation.
"Being visually impaired is not a direct disability," he said. "It doesn't make you run slower or throw the ball any less hard. But it definitely is a barrier. It's all about choosing the right sports."
Denuyl update:
Clinton High School senior Stephen Denuyl made a splash in his first international appearance for the U.S. Goalball team recently. Competing at the Vilnius Telekonas International Goalball Tournament in Lithuania, Denuyl scored three goals to help propel the Americans to the semifinals.
A sport developed for sight-disabled veterans after World War II, goalball is a cross between volleyball, bowling and soccer in which the players are blindfolded.
Denuyl, who played football and track for the Redskins, is legally blind due to a childhood retinal disease that gave him 20/300 vision.
Rob Hoffman can be reached at rhoffman@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6814.
© 2005 Ann Arbor News. Used with permission
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