October 14, 2022

The gym stays quiet for the first 10 points so the autistic, noise-sensitive brother of a player can attend a volleyball game.

WAOW reports. 

"My coach, [Justin] Jacobs, came up to me and asked if Payton was going to come to any of the games," [the player, Malina Carratini] recalled.... "Two days later, [Jacobs] came up to me and was like, 'I came up with this idea. It really hurt me that Payton wouldn't be able to come,' so he was wondering if we would do a silent night"....

24 comments:

gahrie said...

Nice gesture, but now some activist is going to demand that this "accomodation" becomes permanent.

Aggie said...

This is probably a stupid idea, but what about noise-cancelling headphones?

Jupiter said...

After the first 10 points, they go back to shouting racial slurs at the server.

Achilles said...

Good way to make sure volleyball isn't a sport option for women in the near future.

Not as good a way of destroying the sport as letting Trans Men onto the teams but it is close.

Achilles said...

I will say that the progs/democrats are very industrious at destroying anything that helps us form a stronger social fabric.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Aggie, not stupid at all. First thing that occurred to me, and something I've seen on children at loud venues many times.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Nice! Now that’s a reasonable accommodation.

tim maguire said...

Pretty cool to do that once in a while, but it would be unfair to the rest of the fans and players to make it a regular thing.

Ann Althouse said...

"This is probably a stupid idea, but what about noise-cancelling headphones?"

It's not a stupid idea and it probably is the better choice most of the time because it puts the challenged person in control.

But as an occasional matter, it was an impressive show of love for this one boy, and his sister was in on it, protecting his interests (in case he might not want this kind of attention but would prefer a subtler approach to attending the game).

rehajm said...

So...like every other night at girl's volleyball then?

It's girls volleyball, Mom. You didn't moss anything...

Scotty, beam me up... said...

As the father of an autistic child, I understand what the parents and sister of Payton are dealing with. However, I also have seen schools attempting to make accommodations for every type of disability to be “inclusive” for the one child with a specific disability and thus not accommodating the other hundreds or thousands of other students who don’t have a disability. The easiest solution would be to have earphones that are designed to protect one’s hearing, similar to what people who work around aircraft on an airport tarmac wear. Ear plugs can be a solution but an autistic person may have comfort issues with them due to heightened sensitivity of their skin nerves may cause irritation to that child (an analogy for my son is that shirt tags on t-shirts bother him. Our solution was to cut the tag off). We always had headphones with us when Mrs. Scott and I took our son to a place with a lot of noise. Our son was then able to enjoy such things as sporting events and fireworks.

PS - our now adult son works as a welder in a noisy environment. He comfortably wears correct hearing protection because we as parents were proactive with him when he was a child with using the headphones at noisy venues.

Achilles said...

I am trying to decide what the purpose is here.

I don't like being in crowds of people. I don't go to sporting events like this.

I also know other people like this sort of thing. I want people to do what they want to do generally.

I would feel bad if everyone in the stadium catered to me and my needs.

Maybe if this was a one off event, but making it a consistent thing is not good.

Part of the sporting event thing is the enthusiasm, the shit talk, and the safe ritualized combat that allows friendly tribal conflict. This makes up a huge part of the social fabric of the country.

CJinPA said...

Can someone tell me what happens after 10 points? Does the brother leave, or can he handle the rest? The article does not explain.

After the first 10 points, they go back to shouting racial slurs at the server.

That earned a chuckle.

Ann Althouse said...

"Can someone tell me what happens after 10 points? Does the brother leave, or can he handle the rest?"

The plan was for the brother to leave at that point and that is what happened.

I read 2 articles on this incident, and neither presented the facts with great clarity, but that is your answer.

John henry said...

We played volleyball in elementary school gym in the 50s. Then I don't remember hearing about it, other than women's beach volleyball, for another 60 years.

Then granddaughter got involved in club volleyball and plays at a high enough level that she has a full athletic scholarship, Chem engineering.

Grandson, now 14, got involved a couple years ago after trying several other ball sports (His team was AAU/USVBA national champions last July)

(Yeah, bragging on my grandkids. Just try and stop me)

So, as you can imagine, our family lives and breathes volleyball and I am constantly amazed how big a sport it is.

Has it always been a big sport or am I just noticing it in recent years?

John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry

Maynard said...

I am trying to decide what the purpose is here.

I suspect that the purpose is to display one's kindness.

It seems to me like true kindness as opposed to virtue signaling.

Roger Sweeny said...

@ Maynard + + + + +

Steve said...

This is what I refer to as ostentatious accommodation. There is no reason for everyone to be silent during any part of the March. Someone above nailed the proper response, ear protection is available that will more than take care of this. It won’t make a cool TikTok that will get a million views, it’ll just be a kid sitting in ear muffs.

And everyone trashing girls volleyball makes me wonder how earnest your concerns about protecting women’s sports really is. High school girls volleyball is probably the most entertaining of girls sports. Of course I’m a soccer fan so what do I know

Bill Peschel said...

"This is probably a stupid idea, but what about noise-cancelling headphones?"

If you look at the article, you can see that he is wearing a pair.

Geeze, you can't do one nice thing for a person without the meanies jumping on you.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I saw a reddit video of a wheelchair bound young man with apparent communication disabilities watch his favorite band from the side of the stage. He couldn't be closer to the band. When the concert was over the band leader came up to him kneel down to eye level and tried to hug him and the kid moved back trying to avoid him, then the band leader reached out his hands to his hands and again was rebuffed.

It was apparent to me, but maybe this was not the case, the disabled young man was uncomfortable generating special attention.

Randomizer said...

Blogger Steve said...

This is what I refer to as ostentatious accommodation.

That is a good term for it. Payton could have gone to a game wearing noise cancelling headphones, but instead, let's make a big deal out of this thing so someone feels like they made a difference in the world.

Payton must have felt more awkward than usual. He knew that everybody was glancing at him instead of cheering. How do they expect him to act? We know that he's supposed to act like Ed McMahon just showed up with a giant sweepstakes check, but he doesn't know that.

I've been to enough high school volleyball games to know that parents love yelling to their daughters on the team and bland insults at the referees. They came out to support the team, but they are asked to refrain from what they came to do. It's voluntary, but how many people want to be pariahs?

If one is startled and annoyed by loud noises, the whistles are the worst. I'm annoyed by pointless stories like this one.

veni vidi vici said...

I'm not taking a position on this either way because if the community forms a consensus to voluntarily accommodate this one kid, who am I to disagree? It's not like I live there.

But as to the general idea, based on my childhood of attending a high school of about 1500 in a city of 1500-2500-sized high schools, I can't help but wonder, whatever happened to the following vernacular expression and what everyone in a free and civil society used to understand:

"It's not for everyone."

Reserving the right to tar and feather the eager-beaver politician who decides that this polite act needs to be legislated into the school's rules, district guidelines, city or state laws, etc.

veni vidi vici said...

Maybe sitting in the dressing room watching a remote video feed with the sound off?

That way they could say he was there - backstage, even! - and everyone went home happy (and not so soon at the 10 minute mark, either).

Harsh Pencil said...

Same situation in my family.

We simply bought a pair of Winchester brand headphones (the kind you use to protect your hearing at a gun range). Actually, bought two pairs so we always knew we could find one. (Noise cancellation wouldn't work, by the way. Those only work for predictable sounds like airplane engines).

Daughter always brought them to plays and such. Sometimes didn't put them on, but it was a great comfort to her that if she got overwhelmed, they were in her lap to put on.

As our hostess said, it put her in control.