DRAWING FROM THE GAME
By ERIC EMMERLING
New Hampshire Union Leader Sports
YOSEF OSHEYACK doesn't remember much of his early childhood. At the age of 7, he was just too young to fully comprehend what transpired after his parents' death.
A survival instinct probably had something to do with the fuzzy memory. After all, he suddenly found himself being uprooted from relatives and a familiar culture and sent aboard his first-ever airplane ride to, what was for him, an unknown destination.
At the time Yosef Osheyack could recall two important revelations.
"I didn't know I was deaf until I came to America and got a hearing aid in a hospital," said Osheyack, who, with his younger brother Dan, came to Norwich, Vt., to live with an adoptive family.
And in his new home, just as in his home country, Ethiopia, they played soccer.
Without soccer, Osheyack, now a junior striker and leading scorer for two-time defending champion Hanover -- presently riding a 21-game win streak -- doesn't know how he would have ever dealt with the challenges he's overcome. And at first, even soccer posed a burden.
"I could remember playing soccer in Ethiopia, but I had no idea what the rules were or what it meant to be on a team. Here, I wanted to quit, but my (adopted) mom wouldn't let me. Now that's why I like it," said Osheyack, a two-year varsity veteran who has netted 11 goals and six assists for the 13-0-1 Marauders this season.
He felt different and yearned to be just like everyone else. The soccer pitch helped him assimilate. It was where players basically expressed themselves with a ball rather than English words he couldn't understand or hear.
Teammates became off-the-field friends, helping him fit in at the school cafeteria and hallways. They also adopted an on-the-field language of gestures, glances and hand signals. Osheyack started playing soccer year-round and became quite good.
"I can't hear here," he said pointing to his ears, "But I can hear with my eyes by reading players in their eyes and knowing what they are doing. I can read lips and also I can hear a little bit. All of this helps," said Osheyack, who is about 90 percent deaf.
He spent several summers learning sign language and lip reading at the Austine School for the Deaf at Brattleboro, Vt. He's also learned to differentiate sound while wearing his hearing aid, which -- save rainy days -- he wears while competing.
Running track and playing basketball helped him develop athletically. Coping strategies for deafness helped him fine-tune a soccer intuition that keeps him a step ahead of other players.
"He doesn't know how good he is and probably won't until he's playing college soccer," said Hanover coach Robert Grabill.
"He makes runs off the ball that are too sophisticated for his teammates and sometimes those watching. He runs east and west looking for holes. He holds back and when he runs through he's so far ahead of everyone else it looks like he's offside, but he isn't. It can be frustrating, but he just shakes his head and plays on."
He's also worked hard off the pitch to earn near honor roll grades while mastering classroom challenges presented to him in a second language he has troubles hearing. He routinely seeks tutorial assistance.
"When I came here I had no idea where I was going. I had no idea. No clue. When I got here I had to learn everything, even about America. It was tough," said Osheyack.
He arrived here during the winter, having never known cold temperatures or seen snow in Ethiopia. Since then he's had to move in with another family while learning to deal with seasonal weather, the English language and American culture. Within four years, as a fifth-grader, he started feeling comfortable.
"In Ethiopia I was like ...," he paused for a moment to collect himself. "I was all alone after my parents died." He can't recall when or how they died, only that he spent some time living with an aunt before being flown to America.
"And I've had to work at everything," he said. "That's why soccer is fun for me. When I play I never give in to being tired. All I know is working hard."
In Ethiopia, Osheyack played pickup soccer on a dirt field. The game lasted until it was time to quit. This was a far cry from what he encountered in the US playing on school and club teams, wearing spiffy uniforms, playing on manicured pitches where people take winning, losing, officiating -- even playing time -- pretty seriously.
"It's not that he doesn't take the game seriously, it's just that he is very centered," said Grabill, who offered an example of Osheyack's work ethic.
"He's very persistent chasing the ball," said the Marauder mentor. "Some kids will just quit when they lose the ball, but he comes back -- and with a vengeance. He certainly possesses an ability to finish."
Osheyack wants to remain in America, a country possessing more options, choices and opportunities than Ethiopia. "It's safer here, too. They don't fight wars here," he said.
He no longer speaks Amhark, the Ethiopian language, but occasionally corresponds with three older brothers and a sister still living there. He's hoping to organize a homecoming in 2010.
"You know why I picked that year," he asked with a smile. South Africa is the 2010 FIFA World Cup host. "With me, it's all about soccer."
