by Riley Bauling
Daily Lobo
Tim Garcia has been playing racquetball for 14 years.
But for him, it's more than just hitting a rubber ball against a wall.
"I don't care about myself being deaf when I'm playing," Garcia said through interpreter Jaime Campbell. "The most important thing is for me to stay happy, and I'm happy when I'm playing racquetball."
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The 33-year-old Garcia has been a student at UNM for six years, five of which he has spent working as a parking officer
for Parking and Transportation
Services.
Between classes and working 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. shifts five days a week, Garcia spends the rest of his time running around Court 11 in Johnson Center.
Although he'll play with anyone that will take him on, he's not your typical recreational player. He plays at the open-professional level - the highest level of five in a racquetball tournament - in tournaments around the state and has seven first-place trophies to show
for it.
Garcia's parents found out he was deaf when he was 2 years old. His parents aren't deaf and neither is his brother, so growing up as the only deaf person in his family wasn't always easy.
His parents learned home sign by the time Garcia was 7, but unlike American Sign Language, home sign isn't a language. It is simple signs for everyday needs and wants - such as food, time and sleep - that allow for a faster form of communication than writing between hearing and deaf people, Garcia said.
It wasn't ideal, but Garcia said he and his family understood that it was better than having no communication at all. It's common for hearing parents to not learn any form of signed communication when they have deaf children, Garcia said.
"I feel really lucky because my parents love me a lot," he said. "My parents are real patient when they communicate with me, and I think that's very rare."
Garcia said he learned to use humor to help get his ideas and words across easier. That's still what he turns to when he wants to crack up his racquetball partners or friends.
One of those racquetball partners, Tom Root, has been playing with Garcia for six years at Johnson. Garcia's favorite way of lightening the mood during a match is to pretend to take pictures of Root when he botches a shot on the court, Root said.
Those jokes become more important when communicating isn't so simple, Root said. Garcia and his opponents keep score with their hands instead of their mouths, but when there's a problem with the score, things can get a little difficult.
"If there's an issue, he'll holler," Root said. "If it's an issue for one of us, we wait for him to turn around; or I talk and let him read my lips; or I gesture. And it's a challenge for me sometimes, but Tim has a great sense of humor - it's one of his greatest assets. He's very easy-going."
In racquetball, Garcia makes up for his lack of hearing with his other senses. He can feel the vibrations of his opponents' shoes as they run around the court, so he knows where they are at all times even though he can't hear them.
He has always relied on his eyesight to compensate for a loss of hearing, and in a tight space with a ball zipping around, that's what helps him see things his opponents can't.
"I have really good eyes, so it's easier for me to connect with a racquetball, which goes really fast," he said. "I know where the ball is going to go before it's coming, because I'm always feeling the vibrations. I can feel before I can see where the ball is going to go. It's a sense of anticipation."
Garcia's next tournament is in November. It's his first time back in the open-professional bracket after straining a tendon in his elbow three years ago from practicing three to five hours a day. Injury-free now, he's ready to make another run at one of those first-place trophies.
"I'm not afraid to challenge them in any level," he said. "Those people in the tournament already know who I am, and they keep begging me to come back, so I decided to come back and challenge them."
In the meantime, Garcia said he's content enforcing UNM's parking rules and taking classes to get his bachelor's degree in education.
Clovis Acosta, director of Parking and Transportation Services, said Garcia has been a stellar employee throughout his five years working there. Acosta said there haven't been many communication problems because several of the other employees have learned simple signs in order to talk with Garcia.
If those signs don't work, there's always a pen and pad close by, Acosta said.
"He's a great employee," Acosta said. "He's been great since he got here."
Parking enforcement is a thankless line of work sometimes, especially when Garcia has to deal with people on campus that don't understand he's only doing his job when he writes them a ticket, he said.
He said the hard part of the job comes when someone tries to argue their way out of a ticket. Garcia can read lips, but he said the best communication takes place when he whips out his pen and paper and offers that as a way to have a conversation.
Some people don't have a problem with that, but patience isn't a virtue for others, he said. He gives his boss's phone number to those people, he said.
Impatient stares aren't limited to his time dealing with people at the University, though.
"It's difficult when I go into a restaurant and the waiter doesn't know that I'm deaf," he said. "They give me a weird look sometimes, but most people find out that I'm deaf, and they're friendly after that."
Garcia said he's used to the awkward stares and misconceptions hearing people have of deaf people, because he has dealt with them all his life.
"I think hearing people are afraid of deaf people, but deaf people aren't going to bite," he said. "Deaf people and hearing people are both human. I guess that hearing people sometimes don't understand that it's a different culture."
