They Let It Die

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Quietly. Slowly. Without resolve.

 

Deaf softball in New England was once alive — rivalries, grit, community. Then it faded away, not because the players disappeared, but because leadership did.

 

No final game.

No accountability.

Just years of excuses and silence.

 

I couldn’t accept that as the ending.

 

I saw empty fields.

I listened to players who kept speaking up — and were never answered.

I watched problems repeat themselves while nothing changed.

 

And I asked the question no one wanted to face:

 

Why does this keep happening?

 

When the same voices kept circling the same meetings,

when process replaced action,

when politics mattered more than play —

I stopped waiting.

 

I built something new.

 

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From Nothing to NEDSO

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The New England Deaf Softball Organization wasn’t inherited.

 

There was no blueprint.

No funding.

No institutional backing.

 

Just a willingness to do the work others talked about for years.

 

I studied what failed.

I listened to players who had been ignored.

I built rules that fix problems instead of postponing them.

 

Not by protecting power.

Not by clinging to outdated systems.

But by designing something fair, transparent, and enforceable.

 

NEDSO was built to function — not to stall.

 

It exists to give Deaf athletes a real home again,

not just a schedule, but leadership that shows up.

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Before I Built the League, I Played the Game

 

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I didn’t come to this as an outsider.

 

I earned my place on the field.

I competed.

I won.

I bled for teams that mattered.

 

I learned what accountability looks like when it’s real —

and what happens when it disappears.

 

I also learned what it feels like when the game you love has no future because no one is willing to fix what’s broken.

 

That silence wasn’t accidental.

It was chosen.

 

So I chose differently.

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Why I Did This

 

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Because Deaf athletes deserve more than endless meetings.

More than recycled leadership.

More than promises that never reach the field.

 

I didn’t want just another league.

 

I wanted a system that works.

A structure that evolves.

A culture where problems are confronted — not buried.

 

This isn’t about reviving the past.

 

It’s about replacing it.

 

About building something that doesn’t collapse when it’s tested.

Something that doesn’t need excuses to survive.

 

 

They let it die.

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I brought it back — and built what comes next.