Last Wednesday, Hanover senior field hockey player Juliana Moore joined thousands of other high school students across the state when she signed papers to continue her athletic career in college. But Moore’s commitment was much more than just the realization of a dream. Playing any sport in college was not even on the radar for most of her early life as the shy youngster had bigger battles to overcome.

  Moore was born deaf and for the first two and a half years of her life she did not hear a sound.

  But six months before her third birthday, Juliana’s mother Becki took a chance on what was then a fairly new procedure called a cochlear implant- an electronic device which creates an interpretation of sound that allows the patient to hear.

  “She doesn’t hear like we hear,” Becki said. “What they tell us is, it gives you a concept of sound. So the brain works overtime to make sense of all this.”

  Juliana underwent surgery to have the implant just above her right ear.

  “Back then that was state of the art,” Becki said. “You did one side.”

  Though still extremely young, Juliana vividly remembers when she heard sound for the first time. “I was so scared,” she said. “I cried the first time the sound was turned on.”

  “They turned it on in two increments,” Becki said. “Just that first increment, she just freaked out.”

  Juliana gradually adjusted to the world of sound as 75 percent of her hearing was restored.

  As Juliana grew, Becki began to get a sense that there was a bit of adventure in her shy child. “She has no fear,” Becki said. “In water, even when she was little, she’d just jump in- ‘I want to swim so bad.’ She had no fear.”

  That trait became further pronounced when Juliana took up soccer between her third and fourth grade years. “I start playing goal keeper,” Juliana said. “I (not) afraid of the soccer ball and I just go get ball. I just grab it. It was a lot of fun.”

  Juliana continued to play soccer on into high school when she found a new love- field hockey. “I just try it when I was a freshman, just try different sport,” she said.

  Hanover field hockey coach Sarah Bottorff had already developed a relationship with Moore through teaching her biology class at Hanover High School. “I was kind of used to communicating with her anyway,” Bottorff said. “It wasn’t that much of a transition for me.

  “Her mother gave me some strategies- speak to her on the side she has the implant on and I just had to make sure I did those things so she could understand what I was trying to tell her.”

  For Bottorff, field hockey was the perfect fit for Moore. “That’s what’s so cool about the sport,” she said. “You don’t have to be the best athlete or you don’t have to be just a certain type of athlete, a certain type of person. There’s all different types of people play hockey around the world and that’s what makes it a cool sport. It’s a different group of people and she’s a testament to that.”

  As a freshman on the Hanover JV team, Moore joined a group of others like her who had never played the sport before. “I was pretty bad,” Juliana laughed. “I had no clue as to the rules or anything.”

  Even though the sport involved swinging sticks and solid balls that sometimes fly through the air, Becki did not hold much trepidation about allowing her legally deaf daughter to participate. “I really didn’t because it was an avenue,” she said. “Everything is so equal on the playing field.”

  Despite her feelings, Becki admits there were a few moments that every parent fears and one came early in Juliana’s freshman season.

  “She took a header and it just dropped her like a rock,” Becki said. “Somebody just hit the ball, it came straight up and she just went straight down.”

  Juliana still carries a mark on her forehead from that contact.
  However, when Juliana adapted to the pace of the game, she quickly found a new love. By sophomore year her talent had carried her to Hanover’s varsity squad. Wanting to improve further she began to search for other avenues to play the sport outside of school and joined the Swift Creek Fusion travel team- an incredibly daring adventure for the extremely shy athlete.

  “She didn’t know a soul on the team when she went over there,” Becki said. Furthermore due to heavy snow that winter Juliana made only a few practices before they hit the road. 

  However, that first trip was a broadening experience for the shy youngster when she was forced to room with the group of virtual strangers during a tournament at Disneyworld.

  “They flew down, she knew nobody and by the time they flew back it was just like she had known them for years,” Becki said.

  Furthermore, Juliana proved valuable to the team. “They didn’t know her really so she went from just subbing in to being a really valuable member of the team- starting,” Becki said. “They depended on her and the girls saw she’s just one of us and it really did make an impact.”

  Last February, Juliana received her second cochlear implant above her left ear. “The new one by itself, it will test maybe zero,” Becki said. “But the two of them together will test around 95 (percent). It’s just fascinating to me.”

  With the increase in hearing and maturity Juliana began to undergo a transformation and Bottorff believes a lot came from her involvement with field hockey over the summer. “She was shy and trying to come out of her shell and that really happened for her,” Bottorff said. “She really blossomed.”

  Where before Juliana hid her hearing disability, she became more comfortable with who she was and Moore’s senior season at Hanover turned into one that could be written as a Hollywood script.

  The Hawks roared through the Capital District to claim the regular season and tournament titles without a loss. Reaching the regional semifinals against Cosby, Hanover sought to do what no Capital District team had accomplished before- reach the state tournament.

  What made the game even more special for Moore was many of the Cosby players were her Fusion teammates.

  It was Moore who broke a scoreless first half by connecting on a goal with 27 minutes remaining.

  Sidelined with a yellow card penalty, Moore then watched as Cosby tied the game minutes later.

  “I was thinking I did not want to go overtime,” she said. “I hate overtime.”

  The clock was ticking down into the final two minutes when teammate Abby Bellows found Moore inside the circle. For the legally deaf senior, the sound of the ball making contact with the back of the box was an unforgettable moment and meant Hanover would make its first trip to the state tournament.

  “Oh my gosh, this is the best, best ever game for me,” she said. “It’s just so exciting.”

  But Moore’s year of accomplishments was not over. During the Thanksgiving break, Moore and her Fusion teammates swept their pool at the USA National Field Hockey Festival in Phoenix, Az. to earn a gold medal.

  Because she had such a love of field hockey, Moore wanted to continue playing on into college and she found the perfect fit at South Carolina’s Limestone College; a NCAA Division II school in their third year of fielding a team. “I’m feeling comfortable with this college,” Moore said. “They’re very nice people and a very nice coach. So I just go there and keep playing field hockey.”

  After making contact with the college, the Limestone coaches came to see Moore play at Disney and elsewhere before making their evaluation.

  “When we went in October for an overnight visit they were ‘Yeah, we definitely want you to come here’,” Becki said.

  Juliana will attend Limestone on a partial athletic scholarship and partial academic scholarship.

  Like any mother, Becki gets emotional when she talks about her child going away to college, but perhaps her reaction stems from knowing how far her daughter has come. “It’s going to be tough but I’m just extremely proud,” Becki said. “She has just worked. I never thought I’d see this day.”