Sloat hasn't heard any of that praise. He's deaf.

He's grown up in a world full of images that have no sound, and sometimes that bothers him and his parents.

"It's like a death," said Kendall Kissel-Sloat, Isaac's mother. "You have to go through a mourning and a grieving and a letting-go, because you don't realize that you already have expectations. You have to come face to face with all of those expectations that you didn't know you had, and you have to let them go. And then you have to start over."

Six months after Isaac was born, his parents, Brian and Kendall, felt something was wrong. They took their first-born to the doctors and expressed their concerns.

The Sloats were told everything was fine and that they were imagining things, that Isaac's ear canals were small and were blocked with wax.

After a short while, the Sloats knew better. They had Isaac tested more thoroughly. They were told he'd been born deaf.

That shouldn't have come as a complete surprise. Brian and Kendall both have hearing problems. Brian can't hear high tones well, and Kendall has tinnitus, or a ringing in the ears.

"He had us fooled for a little bit," said Brian, who since has been divorced from Kendall. "We both found it difficult to deal with. It was, 'Why is this happening?' After a while, we came to the conclusion that it was put to us because we could probably deal with it."

That doesn't mean it was easy. Never was. Never has been. Never will be.

"At first, I was bullied a little bit," Isaac said via e-mail. "But eventually the others would leave me alone. That was in middle school. In high school, most of my peers treated me like they would anybody else, aside from the whole different mediums of communication thing."

There have been plenty of times when Isaac asks, 'Why me?'

Although he had an interpreter at his side every day at school, it was difficult to deal with his inability to communicate with teachers and friends like the other students did.

"I think that he deals with being deaf very well," Kendall said. "Does he have anger? I do think he has a lot of anger. I think he will have to work through that as he grows older."

The Isaac that arrived at Southwest, however, isn't the same Isaac that left it. Not as a player or as a person.

Isaac was introduced to lacrosse in gym class and loved it. When he and a friend heard a team was forming at Southwest, they jumped at the chance to join.

During his sophomore season, Isaac saw significant playing time as an attacker. His teammates developed arm signals as a way to alert him to a play call or a change on the field during a match. He always had his eyes open to everything around him and constantly was on the move in order to anticipate shifts in the offense. He also had an interpreter on the sidelines — many times it was his father — to help him.

"He probably missed out on some of the camaraderie and joking around that other guys took part in," Southwest coach John Lombardi said. "But, you know, that's his life.

"He wanted to be one of the guys. We came to accept him. It became normal for us."

Like other first-time players, Isaac wasn't good when he started. He barely could catch and throw. But he was a hard worker, and he quickly improved.

A year ago, he earned a starting job as a junior. This year, he earned honorable mention on the all-Bay-Valley Conference team.

"He was the only senior on the attack this year," Lombardi said. "He had some big games and some big goals."

Perhaps more importantly, Brian and Kendall say they've noticed a difference in their son's confidence over the past three years.

"He needed teamwork, and he needed socializations that often deaf people don't have," Kendall said. "His self-esteem is better. He is more compassionate now. He had to learn how to work with other kids and a team."

Although he is done with high school, Isaac plans to continue his lacrosse career. He will take a year off from school, then hopes to go to a liberal arts college to major in English.

"If the college I go to doesn't have a team or a club," Isaac said, "I am going to start one there."

There are plenty of obstacles ahead in Isaac's life, and Kendall worries about him at times, but the family is confident he will be fine.

"It was difficult, but all in all, we did a pretty good job," Brian said. "He is a healthy, intelligent young man who has a lot to give to a lot of people."

By Scott Venci
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/GPG0205/606290465/1225/GPGsports