A digital display mounted on the helmet shows the plays selected by the coach.
AT&T
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AT&T
A digital display mounted on the helmet shows the plays selected by the coach.
AT&T
Coaches at Gallaudet University, a school for hearing-impaired students in Washington, D.C., can now use a first-of-its-kind football helmet to transmit plays to the quarterback via an augmented reality screen. Masu.
Players on Gallaudet’s NCAA Division III football team have long faced challenges against teams with hearing players, including not being able to hear the referee’s whistle that signals the end of play.
The helmet, developed in conjunction with telecommunications giant AT&T, aims to address another long-standing problem: coaches directing players to play.
“If the players can’t see you and I’m not making sure you’re making eye contact, they’re not going to understand what I’m saying,” Gallaudet head coach Chuck Goldstein said in an instructional video. ” he said in an explanatory video.
With the new helmet, Gallaudet coaches use a tablet to select plays that are sent via cell phone service to a miniature lens built into the player’s helmet. Quarterback Brandon Washington is scheduled to debut the helmet in the Bison’s home game against Hilbert College on Saturday.
“This will level the playing field” for deaf athletes playing in mainstream leagues, former Gallaudet player and special teams coordinator Shelby Beane said in a press release. “As a former player, I am very excited to see this innovative technology change our lives and football itself.”
Unlike the NFL, college football typically does not allow the use of helmet-based communication systems. The NCAA only approved the helmet for use in a single game on a trial basis.
Gallaudet’s deaf soccer team pioneered perhaps the most iconic innovation in sports communications: the huddle. In an 1894 game against another deaf team, Gallaudet’s quarterback didn’t want to risk being overheard talking to his teammates in American Sign Language, a language now commonplace in many team sports. He gathered his teammates in a small circle.
In the 1950s, two inventors convinced Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown to try out a radio receiver they developed to fit inside a quarterback’s helmet to transmit plays from the sideline. . After four games, it was banned by the NFL Commissioner.
However, the NFL relented in 1994. Since then, wireless helmets have become standard in the professional world, with recognizable green dots marking the helmets of quarterbacks and defensive players who receive plays via one-way communication from a coach’s headset.
