Post by 50yardfan on Jun 30, 2011 13:11:32 GMT -5
Panthers nose tackle Munir Muwwakkil — deaf since the age of 3 — hasn’t let his disability slow him down during his football career, which has brought him to Albany, where he’s been one of the team’s defensive stars all season.
www.albanyherald.com/sports/headlines/Man_in_the_middle_124754094.html
ALBANY – Munir Muwwakkil is just one of the guys.
And that’s exactly how the Albany Panthers nose tackle wants it to be.
Completely deaf since spinal meningitis-coccal pneumonia threatened his life at three years of age, Munir has found a niche with the Panthers, where his inability to hear has gone relatively unnoticed.
It’s been no problem for Muwwakkil, who anchors a defense that finished the regular season fifth in the SIFL and made game-changing plays late in the last two playoff games. And he hopes to do the same in Saturday’s title game against Louisiana.
“I don’t think my teammates worry about me being on the team,” Muwwakkil said through an interpreter Wednesday. “We’ve all trained together, we’ve watched film together. I learn the plays, and I know the plays.”
Business as usual — well, almost.
Muwwakkil’s coaches at the high-school level used specific tactics to teach the game to the big man who stands 6-foot-2, 345 pounds — sometimes including hand signals.
The exponential progress Muwwakkil had made by the time he had become an upperclassman at Pinellas Park (Fla.) High School ultimately led him to Western Kentucky University for a college career.
“I studied all plays throughout the course of my high school years,” Muwwakkil said. “It was hard at first, but as a junior I started to develop more skill, and my coaches and I became more adept at communicating.”
The Panthers coaches, who themselves adopted a few special signals for Muwwakkil, have come to notice that as well.
“If you look over his handicap, he’s a good player — a real good player,” Panthers coach Lucious Davis said of Muwwakkil. “He understands football. He knows how to play the position. Every now and then, we may have a communication barrier, but it’s slim to none. We kind of know how to communicate with him in our own way, and he understands, and he gets everything together.”
That subtle communication actually has been used more on the fly than as standard procedure.
“He knows the plays,” said Andre Slappey, who coaches both the offensive and defensive lines for the Panthers. “It’s just sometimes we change what we’re doing, like, late in the down. With him, a lot of times I tell him to watch me so he can see what we’re doing.”
However, Slappey said it’s often not even Muwwakkil’s doing that beckons the special communication.
“We make a change and he thinks it’s him,” Slappey said. “We might have seen something else we wanted to take advantage of, and he might think he did something wrong, but you have to go up to him and tell him, ‘You’re fine.’ ”
Former Albany State star Jacob Hardwick, one of Muwwakkil’s companions on the Panthers’ defensive line, has noticed no problems communicating with his deaf teammate.
“The fact that he reads lips helps out a whole lot, too,” Hardwick said of Muwwakkil, who finished the regular season with 5 1/2 total tackles and 2 1/2 sacks. “If I’m not able to read a sign, the fact is he’s able to read my lips, so communication is not a problem. That was what I thought was going to be the biggest issue when I heard that he was deaf.
“Communication is not a problem at all. We can work with that. We can win with that.”
In fact, Muwwakkil has felt so comfortable in the Panthers’ locker room, he’s become something of a team jokester.
“Munir will joke with anybody without even talking,” Slappey said. “He jokes with me, like, if I come to practice with a wrinkled shirt on, he’d be tapping me to pull down my shirt.
“After being around him so long, you don’t even notice it. We get on each other, we rag him, and he does us the same way. He’s fun to be around.”
Muwwakkil and his teammates now have the opportunity they missed out on last year: a chance to play for the SIFL Championship — and do so against the Louisiana Swashbucklers at the Albany Civic Center in a matchup that ultimately ended the top-seeded Panthers’ 2010 season in the first round of the playoffs.
Muwwakkil said he thinks fortunes could change this year.
“Oh yeah, I feel hopeful,” he said. “Last year, the Panthers won a lot. I remember what happened. I was disappointed we didn’t win (in the playoffs).”
Having experienced the first-round home loss to the Swashbucklers last year, Muwwakkil said he didn’t want to let this year end in similar fashion.
“I want to make sure we win it,” he said. “This is what I want.”
www.albanyherald.com/sports/headlines/Man_in_the_middle_124754094.html
ALBANY – Munir Muwwakkil is just one of the guys.
And that’s exactly how the Albany Panthers nose tackle wants it to be.
Completely deaf since spinal meningitis-coccal pneumonia threatened his life at three years of age, Munir has found a niche with the Panthers, where his inability to hear has gone relatively unnoticed.
It’s been no problem for Muwwakkil, who anchors a defense that finished the regular season fifth in the SIFL and made game-changing plays late in the last two playoff games. And he hopes to do the same in Saturday’s title game against Louisiana.
“I don’t think my teammates worry about me being on the team,” Muwwakkil said through an interpreter Wednesday. “We’ve all trained together, we’ve watched film together. I learn the plays, and I know the plays.”
Business as usual — well, almost.
Muwwakkil’s coaches at the high-school level used specific tactics to teach the game to the big man who stands 6-foot-2, 345 pounds — sometimes including hand signals.
The exponential progress Muwwakkil had made by the time he had become an upperclassman at Pinellas Park (Fla.) High School ultimately led him to Western Kentucky University for a college career.
“I studied all plays throughout the course of my high school years,” Muwwakkil said. “It was hard at first, but as a junior I started to develop more skill, and my coaches and I became more adept at communicating.”
The Panthers coaches, who themselves adopted a few special signals for Muwwakkil, have come to notice that as well.
“If you look over his handicap, he’s a good player — a real good player,” Panthers coach Lucious Davis said of Muwwakkil. “He understands football. He knows how to play the position. Every now and then, we may have a communication barrier, but it’s slim to none. We kind of know how to communicate with him in our own way, and he understands, and he gets everything together.”
That subtle communication actually has been used more on the fly than as standard procedure.
“He knows the plays,” said Andre Slappey, who coaches both the offensive and defensive lines for the Panthers. “It’s just sometimes we change what we’re doing, like, late in the down. With him, a lot of times I tell him to watch me so he can see what we’re doing.”
However, Slappey said it’s often not even Muwwakkil’s doing that beckons the special communication.
“We make a change and he thinks it’s him,” Slappey said. “We might have seen something else we wanted to take advantage of, and he might think he did something wrong, but you have to go up to him and tell him, ‘You’re fine.’ ”
Former Albany State star Jacob Hardwick, one of Muwwakkil’s companions on the Panthers’ defensive line, has noticed no problems communicating with his deaf teammate.
“The fact that he reads lips helps out a whole lot, too,” Hardwick said of Muwwakkil, who finished the regular season with 5 1/2 total tackles and 2 1/2 sacks. “If I’m not able to read a sign, the fact is he’s able to read my lips, so communication is not a problem. That was what I thought was going to be the biggest issue when I heard that he was deaf.
“Communication is not a problem at all. We can work with that. We can win with that.”
In fact, Muwwakkil has felt so comfortable in the Panthers’ locker room, he’s become something of a team jokester.
“Munir will joke with anybody without even talking,” Slappey said. “He jokes with me, like, if I come to practice with a wrinkled shirt on, he’d be tapping me to pull down my shirt.
“After being around him so long, you don’t even notice it. We get on each other, we rag him, and he does us the same way. He’s fun to be around.”
Muwwakkil and his teammates now have the opportunity they missed out on last year: a chance to play for the SIFL Championship — and do so against the Louisiana Swashbucklers at the Albany Civic Center in a matchup that ultimately ended the top-seeded Panthers’ 2010 season in the first round of the playoffs.
Muwwakkil said he thinks fortunes could change this year.
“Oh yeah, I feel hopeful,” he said. “Last year, the Panthers won a lot. I remember what happened. I was disappointed we didn’t win (in the playoffs).”
Having experienced the first-round home loss to the Swashbucklers last year, Muwwakkil said he didn’t want to let this year end in similar fashion.
“I want to make sure we win it,” he said. “This is what I want.”