Churchill swimmer Carli Cronk is deaf, but just call her an athlete
“We don’t talk about her as a deaf swimmer other than her participation in Deaflympics,” said her father, Mark. “She’s a swimmer and a high-quality elite athlete. We just make sure she has all the accommodations she needs.”Carli’s hearing aid squealed each time her Mark rested her on his shoulder, and each time, it broke his heart.
Carli, who is enrolled in the regular high school curriculum at Churchill and is an academic All-American, is the youngest of Jane and Mark Cronk’s four children. Her older siblings — Jenna, Wyatt and Julia — are not deaf. Even with hearing aids, Carli cannot hear many words with “f” or “s.” For example, she can’t hear “fish” but understands the word through lip-reading.“Nope,” Jane said when people made sad eyes. “We are not going have this for her. Do not feel sorry for her. It’s going to be fine. We are going to figure out how she’s going to function.”
“It malfunctions constantly,” Carli said of the device that tells her when to start since she can’t wear her hearing aids during competition. “I’m always looking at the other people while I’m looking at the light.” As Carli worked though her “hate phase of swimming” as Jane put it, she refused to let her daughter quit.
“She’s always been strong-willed, and you can see that in her swimming,” said Churchill senior Luke Peterson said. “She’s always been a hard worker in things she is passionate about, and she’s been able to succeed because of how hard she’s worked.”
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