Saluki freshman swimmer Grace Hale will compete in her first collegiate meet in less than three weeks, beginning a unique journey as one of the few deaf athletes competing at the NCAA Division I level.

After a standout prep career at Reagan High School in San Antonio, Texas, in which she advanced to the 6A state finals all four years and graduated near the top of her class with a 3.8 GPA, Hale will compete in the 50-free and 100-free for Southern Illinois.

Doctors detected slight hearing loss in Hale at birth, but it was not until she was in fifth grade that her condition was diagnosed as severe. Until then, Hale said she lived a normal life in Springfield, Illinois, hanging out with friends and playing several sports, before channeling in on swimming. 

Hale’s fifth-grade teacher contacted her parents with concerns about her schoolwork, uncertain whether Hale was not paying attention or simply had selective hearing. After a visit to the doctor, Hale was discovered to have 80 percent hearing loss in one ear and 75 percent in the other, officially classifying her as deaf. 

“When I found out, I had already lived with it for so long and did not know any different, so I had an easier time adapting,” said Hale. “If anything, it gave me a reason to ask for help. If I was missing what people were saying in the past, I felt bad and would just let it go. Now, people understood and I became more comfortable asking.” 

The 10-year-old was fitted with hearing aids and soon began to thrive in the classroom. 

As a competitive swimmer, Hale cannot wear hearing aids in the pool and relies on coaches writing instructions down for her and watching for lights at the start of races. For meets that do not have lights she looks at other swimmers, which can be a disadvantage due to the importance of starts in sprint events. 

In addition to making state in high school, Hale competed in the 2015 World Deaf Swimming Championships, placing seventh in the 100-free as the third-youngest member of the team. She also qualified to swim in the 2017 Summer Deaflympics in Turkey, but chose not to, due to poor government relations between the countries at the time. 

She first visited SIU in the spring of 2018 and said the coaches and swimmers made a strong impression on her. 

“When I first visited, it was pouring raining and everyone was going home for Easter, yet they were still all so welcoming and made me feel at home,” said Hale. “Also, there are quite a few people from Texas on the team, so we shared a common interest and knew a lot of the same swimmers and coaches.” 

Now a month into college, Hale plans to compete in sprint and mid-distance freestyle events for the Salukis. Outside of the pool, the business marketing major has aspirations of working in marketing or advertising after graduation. 

When asked how she plans to approach her college career as a deaf student-athlete, she smiled and said, “I may look clueless and do the wrong things sometimes, but at the end of the day, I am thankful for my life and just have to keep going forward.”