HIGH POINT, N.C.  — Birthdays are some of the most memorable days.
 
For Joan Ward, there's one that will stick with her until the end of time. She remembers the Year 2000 like it happened yesterday.
 
She was at her 6-year-old daughter's school, where all of Kate Ward's classmates were singing happy birthday on May 5. The gesture was so kind, but all Joan could think about was Kate and how her hearing loss had worsened.
 
"I was just so worried because her hearing had dropped so much overnight," Joan said, "and then she saw me crying later in the day. She just says 'Mommy, are you crying because of me?'
 
"I think I probably nodded my head and she just said, 'It's OK. God is going to take care of me.'"
 
Those words stuck with the mother of three, and it was what she leaned on each time her faith faltered. The way Joan and her husband, Tony, were raising their children — David, Kate, and Clare — in a Catholic household and school was coming full circle.
 
In that Kate, who completely lost her hearing weeks after her mom's birthday on May 5, 2000, was reminding them it was God's plan.
 
"That moment was kind of the reminder that we need to remember to trust in God," Joan said. "It's just really interesting for a lot of reasons because your child is reminding you of that during something that is impacting them more than it's impacting you."
 
Now, 23 years later as a High Point University women's soccer assistant coach and the winningest player in U.S. Soccer history, Kate has taken an unimaginable feat and used it to create an impactful journey as she heads into her sixth DIFA Women's World Deaf Football Championships to represent U.S. Soccer, beginning Saturday, Sept. 23 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 
"That's always been my standpoint – it is what it is, and I've been able to do some really cool things because of it," Kate said. "I think about all the things I can do, instead of all of the things I can't do because of it."
 
UPBRINGING
 
The doctors never knew why Kate lost her hearing.
 
At 3 years old, Joan and Tony found out she was deaf in one ear and hard-of-hearing in the other. So, she got hearing aids and they worked for about three years.
 
Until age 6, when she distinctly remembers walking through the hallway at school and everything going silent.
 
"It was a really scary process, "Kate said.
 
The doctors went back to the drawing board and suggested a cochlear implant, which essentially mimics hearing through an electronic speech processor and transmitter implanted behind the ear.
 
The Wards were all for it, but they were concerned if they would be able to find one. In the 2000s, cochlear implants were rare and expensive. There was also a fear it wouldn't work due to the uncertainty on how Kate lost her hearing.
 
"We didn't know if she would be deaf for the rest of her life," Joan said.  
 
Even in the trying time, they began to replace doubt with faith as four surgeons in their hometown Atlanta, Georgia, specialized in cochlear implant surgeries while insurance covered the device.
 
Finally, it seemed, there was a solution.
 
"We tried to look where we were so fortunate and so blessed," Joan said. "We were in the state, the right city, and the cochlear implant worked for her. It's kind of a miracle if you understand the technology and how it evolved. We tried to focus on how lucky we were because things could've been so much worse."
 
After Kate had the cochlear implant surgery, the Wards had many more huddles to jump over like speech therapy and helping Kate get reaccumulated with everyday life.
 
But it wasn't any obstacle that they couldn't do together.
 
"I can't hear like a normal person does," Kate said, "but it has allowed me to participate in the hearing world and grow up in the hearing world and have hearing friends. I was really, really lucky that I grew up around individuals who embraced me for everything that I was.
 
"I was never thought of as being different, necessarily, and people accommodated me without me even knowing, which allowed me to grow up in a stress-free environment."

The empathy Kate's family had for her showed time and time again. One time when her older brother, David, was at the swimming pool with his sisters, a friend offered for them to play marco polo. But since Kate couldn't get her device wet, he declined. The stories go on and on between laughs from losing speech processors in stingray tanks to the lake, and beeping coming through her device due to a game boy left on.

Through all the ups and downs, the family of five felt whole again.
 
"It's been quite the journey," Joan said. "It's been incredible because I think it made our family so much more compassionate, especially her siblings because they grew up as children with understanding that Kate was different, and she didn't want to feel different. They've always been protective in some way without being outwardly protective.
 
"I honestly think, and I hope, that we have all become better people. I know for a fact that my two other children — with Kate included — are much more compassionate children because of having this in our lives."
 
OPPORTUNITY THROUGH OBSTACLE
 
Soccer has always been true to Kate.
 
Even when she lost her hearing at age 6, the footballer had the sport to fall back on. Kate became so good at soccer that when she was 12 years old a scout from the U.S. Deaf Women's National Team saw her play and immediately wanted her to try out.
 
"At first, I was like 'Why? I'm not deaf,'" she remembers thinking. "Then, I associated deaf with people who signed and didn't wear hearing devices, which in reality there's a really broad spectrum of deafness."
 
Kate's view of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community shifted as she learned more about the makeup of the team and what the U.S. DWNT stood for.
 
"There's people who sign and don't use hearing devices," she said, "and there are people like me who grew up using hearing devices to speak and there's everybody in between. Our team covers a whole spectrum of people which is really, really cool."
 
Kate's parents thought she was too young to play for the U.S. DWNT at the time, but three years later at age 15, she made her first U.S. soccer roster and competed in the 2009 Taipei Deaflympics.
 
Kate, a sophomore at St. Pius X Catholic, quickly became the talk of the town. As the youngest player competing, the newspapers were full of articles, kids asking to take photos with her before bringing them back lamented for Kate to sign.
 
Joan remembers the crowd chanting, "It was the baby," and everyone doing a cradle celebration to represent the young midfielder after she scored a goal.
 
It was such an awing experience for Kate that she told her mom, "Think how different my life would be if I wasn't deaf."
 
Kate found the blessing in her disability, leading her in the ability to impact others with the obstacle God placed in her life.
 
"For the first time in my life, I was around people just like me, which was really, really special," Kate said. "I didn't have deaf role models growing up, so that's something that I've learned is really, really important about this team and the platform that we have to use our voices to connect with people who are growing up like us and don't know about this team or know an individual like me."
 
LIVING FOR OTHERS
 
Kate uses her platform as a five-time gold medalist to show that dreams are meant to be dreamt and the impossible is possible.
 
She's proven it through her humility as a 15-year-old, up-and-coming  star to now the captain of the U.S. DWNT as the winningest player in all of U.S. Soccer history, competing and winning Gold in Taipei Deaflympics (2009), Turkey World Championships (2012), Bulgaria Deaflympics (2013), Italy World Championships (2016), and Brazil Deaflympics (2022).
 
"I think seeing a successful person that has a disability and that is deaf is every bit of important in the deaf community and for hearing people," Amy Griffin, Head Coach of the U.S. Deaf Women's National Team, said. "I think it helps everybody because there is this stigma that if you are deaf you aren't as intelligent or you can't have the same job as someone else. But you can have the same job as someone else as long as you have equal access and I think that's what people really realize.
 
"We'll never know how many people Kate has affected in a positive way, but it's a lot of people in a lot of different generations."  
   
Through nearly 15 years playing on the U.S. DWNT team, Kate has not only made an impact on the field — to become captain and an ESPY nominee for Best Athlete with a Disability, Women's Sports — but has taken the initiative to give back off the field.
 
She's led the efforts in hosting free clinics for deaf, hard-of-hearing kids and hearing kids at every training camp. The relationships she's made within those clinics, especially with a special young girl named Malia who unfortunately lost her battle with neuroblastoma, was a memory that will stick with her forever.
 
"On the first day, she wore her hair down to cover her hearing aids and her dad said at school she was very weary of people looking at things like that," Kate said of Malia. "So, seeing her gain confidence over the next few days with her hearing devices was really cool. At the end of camp, her hair was up and her bright pink hearing aids were completely visible. That was really, really touching."
 
It's in those moments that Kate feels complete because she's creating an environment for kids that she never witnessed until she was 15 years old.
 
"It's hard to talk about, but that's what we are doing this for," she said. "The whole idea is to leave it better for the next generation. We want to do group leadership camps for deaf kids. We want to start a youth league for deaf individuals. We have a lot of big plans and hopefully eventually we can get to those. I think the connections with people like Malia is why we spend so much time doing what we do off the field."
 
Kate stays finding ways to give back like, and not limited to, becoming the Founder and Chair of the Disabilities Allies Advocacy Group within United Soccer Coaches, USA Deaf Soccer Association while leading the efforts for the U.S. DWNT to be paid and pulled under the U.S. Soccer umbrella.
 
"I look up to Kate in a lot of ways both on and off the field," HPU Forward Tessa Carlin said. "Not only has she helped me become a better player over the years, but she has also had an even bigger impact on me as a person. She truly cares for the people around her and wants to see people succeed and I think that is one of the things that makes her such a great leader and coach."
 
Kate's impact has moved to each stop she has gone. As a player at App State to a coach at the University of Texas of El Paso — where she first met Carlin — and now at High Point, Kate is a role model through her legacy to be as good of a person as she is a player.
 
"Kate is a great asset to our program," HPU Women's Soccer Head Coach Aaron McGuiness said. "She is an inspiration to our players and her experience at the highest level has provided them with a wealth of knowledge. We are going to miss her while she is away, but we wish her and Team U.S. all the best and hope they are able to bring home some hardware."
 
As she heads into her sixth appearance with the U.S. Deaf Women's National Team, she won't only walk onto the field looking to win her unprecedented sixth goal medal but to be an example for those who are like her.
 
Because that is the true legacy Kate has always wanted to leave through her success.
 
"I think that every time I get to compete with this team is something that I don't take for granted," she said. "It's really, really cool to represent the Red, White, & Blue obviously, but I've always thought it means so much more than that. I get to be around people who are just like me. I get to hopefully be a role model for people who are just like me.

"I get to affect change through soccer because of this U.S. badge — there's so many awesome things I've been able to do off the field. It's very cool and it's not lost on me that I get to do this. It definitely has a meaning beyond the field as well."