To mark Deaf Awareness Week (4-9 May), we spoke with Mitchell Graham who told us all about his incredible and varied journey in sport as a deaf athlete. Mitchell tells us about his successes, the barriers he has faced and the work he has done with SDS.
Tell us about yourself, your background and how you initially got into sport?
Hello, I’m Mitchell Graham and I’m 28 years old. Growing up I had always had a passion for sports. I was born Deaf to a hearing family. I currently work as a youth service coordinator within Deaf Action.
My passion for sport covers a range of different sports, including hill walking, basketball, rugby, running & CrossFit to name a few. I actively seek out new sports that will challenge me.
My passion for sport came from my father. When he found out I was Deaf he believed that sport would be a great way to help with communication. Children communicate through play and sport encourages social activity as well as communication. Therefore, from a young age I have been actively involved in sports.
How did you progress into performance sport?
My involvement in sport has required a lot of work and commitment, which isn’t always easy. I started off playing basketball from the age of 12 – 20 which required a lot of commitment. I was introduced to basketball through a teacher who saw that I had a talent in using my hands through my previous involvement with rugby. My rugby skills transferred nicely into basketball, therefore I was invited to have a look around Reading Rockets basketball club. It was great to be given the opportunity to see the club and on my return to school, I was informed of a tournament that was due to take place in south London. There were several schools taking part, however what I wasn’t aware of was that throughout the tournament there were scouts looking to pick pupils to create a team.
I never expected to be picked, but I was and this gave me the drive to work hard and have fun. Our team exceeded expectations and reached the finals. One of the teams we were up against was Reading Rockets. Our team were further up the leader board, so they had some work to do to catch us. It was a close competition, however in the end they managed to overtake us by one point. Although initially I was disappointed, it was a great experience that led to me being picked for trials, which subsequently led to me being selected to represent the GB Deaf team. I also participated in trials with hearing peers and got the opportunity to represent my home country, Scotland.
My sports career took a change and I turned to athletics, and to be honest I was late in joining athletics as I was about 21 years old. I joined a club and initially I found the adjustment to individual sports difficult, as I was used to being in a team. Athletics was very much an individual sport which meant I had to have self-discipline and motivation.
A year on, my self-discipline and motivation paid off as my sports career saw me gaining a place in the GB Deaf team for the European and World championships for athletics. This was an amazing experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. Moving on from these championships and taking on board the experience, I focused on my training, changing my coach as I honed my skills and integrated myself with a whole host of people who I could learn from to enhance my development. This was not an easy journey however, five years on I was lucky enough to be selected to represent team GB at the Deafolympics in Samsun. What an experience, a once in a lifetime and acclimatising to the heat is something I will never forget.
What have been your biggest successes and what have been the biggest challenges?
My biggest successes: I can pin down to two, firstly was during my basketball career. I was 15 years old when I went to the under 21’s world championship tournament in Poland. This was quite
daunting as I was one of the youngest as other competitors were aged 19-21 and towered above me. I went to the tournament with the intention of enjoying my first time within this kind of environment while playing a sport I loved. It was during the closing ceremony, while lining up, that my name was announced. I had won the MVP (Most Valuable Player) Defence for the entire tournament. I was gobsmacked as it was totally unexpected. I remember going to collect my award and feeling overwhelmed. I re-joined the line up only for my name to be announced again. I couldn’t believe it, I had won the award for the most rebounds during the under 21 world championship with 106 rebounds in total throughout the whole tournament.
My second success story was during my athletics career: Competing on a world stage at the Deaf Olympics. Being surrounded by Deaf athletes from around the world and competing against this calibre of athletes was an experience that will say with me.
One of the biggest challenges for me was the change in sport, from basketball to athletics. The main difference was going from a team sport to an individual sport. I no longer had that team around me for support. I had to rely on myself to graft, working hard to adjust and relying on my own resilience to learn how to adapt to new ways of training, creating and following programs to ensure I fitted into the sport.
As a deaf athlete, what barriers must be overcome to make sport fully inclusive for all?
The most important thing for me has to be communication, communication between the coach or manager. This has to filter down from the top to the athletes on the ground. I can’t stress enough how important communication is. Without the right level of communication Deaf athletes will throw in the towel. There is nothing worse than that feeling that someone isn’t putting the extra effort to ensure you understand what is going on.
Without direct, clear and concise communication deaf athletes are left feeling disengaged and unsure of what is expected of them. Throughout my journey I have learned through experience of how to work with my coaches. Unfortunately, sometimes, this means having to change coaches as they are unable to adapt their coaching style to suit my needs.
In Basketball, simple reasonable adjustments for example as the coach writing notes, asking the assistant coach to put the instructions on a whiteboard etc. This allows deaf athletes to feel integrated and fully equipped to continue with the task at hand.
Another thing that the coaches and fellow athletes can do is to invest in Deaf awareness training or learn basic sign language skills through a BSL course. Fingerspelling or gestures is enough to make a Deaf athlete feel that their club is accessible.
Tell us about your wider work with SDS in the past
I was involved in SDS’s youth sports panel and was privileged to be able to travel to America to observe their disability sports model and compare that to Scottish disability sports. This was an amazing experience as I was able to see how sports were made accessible, making sure that clubs were catering to different needs such as wheelchair users, physical disabilities and military veterans, and take all of this on board and think about how to make changes to Scottish disability sports, by working with the panel and asking to them make sure accessibility was made for Deaf people. This is the work I have done up to now with SDS. It has been an amazing experience and I want to thank the SDS for their work so far. There’s still a long way to go but it is a starting point to build from.