KU News Release

Signs of success: Deaf soccer player Emily Cressy thrives on applause she sees

Emily Cressy's soccer teammates stand behind her showing the sign-language version of clapping and cheering. Behind her are, from left, Estelle Johnson, Fort Collins, Colo., junior, defender; Shannon McCabe, Tulsa, Okla., junior, forward; and Monica Dolilnsky, Carmel, Ind., junior, forward. (Photo by Chuck France/University Relations)

LAWRENCE — For Emily Cressy, a forward on the University of Kansas women’s soccer team, seeing is believing — especially when it comes to applause.

She got that visual applause Sept. 19 after she scored the game-winning goal that led KU to a 3-2 victory over No. 18 University of Central Florida. Cressy is tied for the KU lead with five goals, including three game-winning scores. She is currently sixth in the Big 12 Conference in goals and is ninth in total points.

The Ventura, Calif., sophomore is deaf, so Cressy’s KU teammates have started a tradition to reward her standout performances. They raise and rotate their hands, palms-open, to give her the sign-language version of clapping and cheering. She sees it a lot.

Cressy has played soccer since she was 4 years old and excelled as a year-round club player since she was 7. Until she was 17, she was with the Eagles Soccer Club in Camarillo, Calif., that consistently won state and national acclaim. When she was 14, the club won the 2004 U.S. Youth Soccer Under-14 National Championship. Also at 14, she became the youngest member of the 2005 Deafylmpics Team USA and, as team co-captain, scored a goal in its 3-0 victory against Russia in Melbourne, Australia.

College coaches nationwide noticed and recruited her. When Cressy was a junior at Buena High School, Mark Francis, KU’s head soccer coach, watched one of her games, noting her playing instincts and skills first and deafness later. Immediately he made sure she and her parents, Rick and Rhonda Cressy, knew what support services awaited her at KU.

“To my knowledge, Emily is the first deaf student-athlete at KU and, as such, the first to use interpreting services,” said Kim Bates, interpreter coordinator at KU’s Disability Resources and Academic Achievement and Access Center. The center is coordinating interpreting for seven students during the fall semester.

Cressy said people expected her to stay on the West Coast, but she was smitten with KU from the start.

“I visited Kansas and just loved it. Everything was amazing — the coaches, the girls, the place, the whole thing,” Cressy said, adding that most of her club teammates who stayed in California have already transferred from the first colleges or universities they attended.

“Being here, one thing I like is that we all get along really well,” she said. “Like my club team. No drama and that’s good. My teammates are all like my family and my big sisters. I love how everyone helps me work though things, like when I freak out about something in class. And I love the steaks here. In California, I ate a lot more pasta and pizza.”

Before she committed to KU, she made several trips to Lawrence by herself, then with her parents. Then she convinced a fellow Californian from Long Beach, Lauren Jackson, to commit to the Jayhawks. Cressy and Jackson were club team rivals for years and now are best friends. After Cressy’s years with the Eagles, she joined Jackson’s Slammers Futbol Club in Newport Beach, Calif., before they both came to KU.

College soccer, she said, “is 100 times more work than club soccer,” because of the running, working with weights and all the practices, travel schedule and class work. She is majoring in early childhood education with a goal of teaching and/or coaching.

Cressy’s family learned she had a hearing loss when she was a toddler who didn’t respond to the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Until she was a sophomore in high school, Cressy had enough capability with hearing aids to understand conversations as well as develop language skills. That year, a strange noise in her right “good” ear woke her up. Tests proved her hearing was gone. She realized she needed to learn sign language in order to continue her education and her beloved soccer — and in both settings she would need interpreters.

Bates and two interpreters on her staff, Catie Johnson and Heidi Benham, work with Cressy on the field and in the classroom. All have bachelor’s degrees from KU and additional interpreter training and certification.

Johnson works with Cressy for all home and away games as well as question-and-answer sessions with area and national media such as ESPN or Sports Illustrated.

Communication for Cressy consists of a combination of American Sign Language, a visual-gestural language, and spoken English she can understand by lip-reading.

From those cues, Cressy replies by speaking or gesturing — and playing to see those uplifted, rotating hands in the air.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.