Casey King & Team USA DIFA World Champs
Earlier in October, Casey King traveled to Malaysia where a lifelong love of soccer turned into the opportunity to play on a global stage. Casey was selected to represent the United States, one of only 22 players, on the Deaf International Football Association (DIFA) World Cup after participating in numerous training camps.
Casey celebrates with Team USA
Casey, who went to Bexley from kindergarten to 8th grade, graduated from Bishop Hartley High School in 2018, and recently became a nurse after graduating from Capital University, has been playing soccer since age six.
“I fell in love with the sport in an instant,” she remembers. Over the years, she played for FC Phoenix, Freedom and Ohio Premier club teams, Bishop Hartley’s high school team and for Capital’s D3 team. She also played basketball and ran track. “I feel the versatility and uniqueness of those other sports helped me to apply and play the game of soccer better. I continue to run on my own to this day, which has been a real stress relief for me.”
“I am now a two-time world champion soccer player, which I would say is the biggest milestone of my soccer career.”
Playing on the US Deaf Women’s National Team (USDWNT) for the DIFA World Cup, Casey says, “is such an incredible honor. Because the USDWNT is now under US Soccer, there is definitely an increase in awareness. This new awareness allows for people to advocate and understand the Deaf community even better.”
On top of getting to know her teammates during the three-week trip to Malaysia, the team also had to “learn how to communicate better with other countries via universal signs/gestures, because sign languages all differ.”
Despite the brutal heat and humidity in Malaysia, Casey was Team USA’s top scorer until her playing time was cut short due to a non-contact accident only 12 minutes into the second game. Nonetheless, Team USA persevered and won! “My favorite moment was when the final whistle blew and the USDWNT got to wave the US flag wave during the championship game,” Casey says. “This gave me immeasurable pride and joy really kicked in.”
Casey with her two coaches, Asst Coach Joy Fawcett and Head Coach Amy Griffin, bothe legends in the world of USA Women's Soccer
As an athlete who is also deaf, Casey wishes people knew that “we, as Deaf people, work twice as hard compared to normal hearing persons. Accessibility is often really limited (even with ADA) and getting proper accommodations such as interpreters takes immense preparation. There is almost never an instance where I can just ‘show up’ or pick a random shift for my work day. A good deal of energy is spent on making sure that I can get the same opportunities that hearing people would get, but the burden of arranging the accommodations is on me.”
Casey pursued a career in nursing (during COVID when, she notes, that learning through Zoom was challenging without interpreters) because “I have always wanted to work in a medical setting... Another one of my biggest motivators was that one of my friends passed away of neuroblastoma very young. He was also hard-of-hearing/Deaf. He lived life to the fullest and never had a bad thing to say, even though he was very sick. This left a major impression on me as I knew I wanted to take care of people like him. Lastly, my grandma was also a nurse back in the days, as well, and I wanted to continue on that tradition.” She is now loving working at the OSU James Cancer Hospital.
