Wearing a Team USA uniform is special for any American, winning a gold medal while wearing it even more so.
UTEP assistant soccer coach Kate Ward experienced all of that this May in Brazil at the Deaflympics when she won her fifth Team USA gold medal, but her two weeks in Caxias do Sul with the USA Deaf Soccer team carried an even deeper meaning for the 28-year-old.
Growing up in the hearing world in Atlanta in mainstream schools, starring at every level of soccer she played, Ward didn't really consider herself deaf. That changed when she joined the deaf national team in 2009 at age 15 and these moments with the national team have taken on more meaning for her.