COVER STORY
Breaking the Sound Barrier
STORY BY JENNA SMALL PHOTOS BY SEBASTIAN DIAZ
At 17 senior Amanda Goyne was named the USA Deaf Sports Federation Athlete of the Year, right after winning numerous medals at the Deaflympics. For Goyne, it’s a winning combination where silence is indeed golden.
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hen you first meet Amanda Goyne, you’re captivated by her radiant smile. She walks with grace and speaks with eloquence. At first glance you wouldn’t notice the small flesh-colored hearing aids in her ears. It comes as a shock to find out that you’re having a very clear conversation with a person who is almost completely deaf.
Amanda Goyne (left) and Katie Lyons (right) met in Austria as high schoolers. They’ve been skiing partners since then and are also teammates on the UNR Ski team.
Goyne, a senior majoring in biology at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been severely hearing impaired since the age of three. The cause of her deafness is unknown, but her determination to not let it restrict her from a normal life is clear. From the very first time she hit the slopes of Mount Shasta in California as a 3-yearold, Goyne has been addicted to snow. She started her career in ski racing at 6 years old and has spent every year since then training and competing. The ski racing culture and lifestyle has served not only as a passion for Amanda, but also an emotional outlet. “The people in middle school made it kinda tough for me,” she says. “I was outcasted because of my deafness. Kids can be so brutal.”
Goyne found herself retreating from the schoolyard brutality to the mountain slopes. There she put all of her pent up frustration into ski racing. She reminisces on that time in her life without any resentment and instead views it as a major motivational factor. During a time when budding teenagers are so easily distracted by social insignificancies, Goyne was all the more focused on excelling in her sport. “It made me the person I am today,” she says. Amanda wasn’t the only Goyne spending lots of time on the slopes. Rick Goyne, her father who still resides in Amanda’s hometown of Redding, Calif., accompanied Amanda in her adventures and contributed to her passion for skiing. “If you’re a soccer mom you sit on the sidelines,” he says. “But we got to partici-
pate. We’d travel with her to Sugar Bowl and to Mount Hood, and ski with her. It’s a family thing.” After racking up three medals at the 2003 Winter Deaflympics in Sundsvall, Sweden and being named the 2003 Widex Sportsman of the Year, Goyne joined the Wolf Pack women’s Alpine ski team. “It took quite a bit of an adjustment,” says Katie Lyons, fellow Alpine skier and long time friend of Goyne. “Not just on my part, but the ski team’s part as well because Amanda is special and what she does, and how she does it, is absolutely phenomenal.” Amanda met Katie while training in Austria during Amanda’s senior year of high school. They share the same major and became best friends when they joined the UNR ski team the same year.
“I would say that where I am her ears, she is my eyes, ” says Lyons. “She can see so well. We’ll be sitting in class and I’ll have no idea what something from far away says and she’ll be able to read it easily.” Lyons explains that due to being forced to lip read and constantly read subtitles, Goyne has developed her vision more than someone has who doesn’t have a hearing impairment. In order for deaf skiers to be fully aware of their surroundings, enhancing the use of their other senses is necessary. Not only does Goyne rely heavily on her sight, but she describes skiing as more of a physical flow. “I thought it was a lot like dancing,” she says. “The movements are similar, especially when you’re flying down the hill.” Dancing is another one of Goyne’s hobbies. She started ballroom dancing about a year and half ago. There she met her fiancé, recent UNR civil engineer graduate Josh Mooneyham. At the age of 17, Goyne became an icon for the deaf community when she was named the 2003 USA Deaf Sports Federa-
Goyne (left) and Lyons (right) will continue their friendship in medical school.
“I would say that where I am her ears, she is my eyes,”
— Katie Lyons, Amanda Goyne’s best friend.
tion Athlete of the Year. Many would think the public attention, the year-round ski training and piles of schoolwork would create a huge amount of pressure for her. But she has a completely different perspective. Goyne has used the publicity as a platform for sending out a message—that being deaf shouldn’t restrain the amount of success a person can attain. “There are such low expectations for people who are members of the deaf community,” she says. “I wish there was something I could do to that big discrepancy, because we are expected to read at a third grade level by the time we graduate high school. We’re not expected to go to college, we’re not expected to have a job and we’re supposed to be on social security for our entire lives. I feel like there is so much more opportunity out there that really hasn’t been given to us. They have the potential to do well.” Goyne carries her achievements with dignity and grace. She doesn’t have the expected ego of a major award-winning champion. Rick Goyne explains that in the sport of ski racing, athletes expect to lose—it’s normal. “Most athletes are never happy about their run,” he says. “They talk about little mistakes here and there—they grow up in
an environment where winning isn’t everything. If you value yourself on winning, you won’t become successful. Just because you fail doesn’t mean you give up.” Amanda Goyne had to learn her father’s lesson the hard way. A few years ago during a race in Utah, she lost by a hundredth of second. “I made a mistake and had the mindset that I had already lost,” she recalls. “ I had already given up. I could have won if I would have pushed it.” She learned that no matter what happens on the run, one must always do their best until it’s completely over. Rick Goyne believes that competitive Alpine skiing has its highs and lows, and athletes that can tough it out will become better people. “No matter how good you are, you still gotta have a little luck,” he says. “Every little thing matters. The key is not letting it get you down—you have to keep in mind that you always have another weekend.” Along with emotional strength and endurance, ski racing requires a major amount of will power, Amanda says. “You have to get yourself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and get onto the hill.”
This year is a big year for Amanda Goyne. Along with her summer wedding plans, she will be graduating in May and attending medical school in the fall. Another major turning point for her is that her Alpine skiing eligibility will be coming to a close, so it will be her last year skiing competitively. “I want to have fun,” she says. “I want to enjoy every moment of it.” i