“If I don’t want to hear what you say, I can turn you off. And I can sleep really well.”
Georgia State’s junior goalkeeper Rebecca Toler was born with a hearing disability that wasn’t diagnosed until she was three years old.
She attended public school growing up, was ignored in class and bullied by some of her classmates. Even after making her varsity high school team as a freshman, she was told she would never be able to hack it as a keeper at the college level.
Toler used the criticisms and intimidation tactics as motivation and turned herself into a goalkeeper commodity coming out of Collierville High School outside of Memphis, Tenn.
She chose to play college soccer at Tennessee Tech University and was the starting goalkeeper for the Golden Eagles her freshman and sophomore years before transferring to Georgia State this fall.
Toler has started seven games and posted one shutout for the Panthers this fall while sporting a goals against average of 1.69.
She is also a member of the United States National Deaf Soccer Team that recently won the World Deaf Football Championships in Turkey and will travel to Bulgaria next summer to compete in the Deaf Olympics.
Toler, who now wears an in-the-ear hearing aid the size of a kernel of corn, lists Tim Howard as her soccer role model, both on and off the field. Howard, who plays goalkeeper for the United States Men’s National Team and Everton in the English Premier League, suffers from turrets syndrome.
On attending college in downtown Atlanta- “I love being in the city and I’m a big Braves fan. There’s never a dull moment here.”
On the difficulties of using sign language during a game- “It’s really hard with my Mickey Mouse gloves. There’re really big so it’s really hard to communicate on the field.
On when she knew first knew, in kindergarten, that she was different than other people- “Looking around and not seeing anyone else have a freaking box strapped to their chest. That’s when a kind of knew I was different.”
Toler said that people have misconceptions about her when they realize she’s deaf, which she proves wrong through a strong academic performance.
“They think you’re dumb,” Toler said. “I’ve made the Dean’s List the last three semesters. I’m a smart kid.”
