LETTER TO THE EDITOR: SHI Stadium needs larger captions, continue American Sign Language advocacy

As a Deaf Rutgers alum and season ticket holder to men's basketball and football games since my student days, I would like to share my thoughts and experience regarding Rutgers football stadium's real-time captioning this year.

I was involved with the captioning of the Rutgers Athletics events in 2014 by collaborating with Rutgers Sports IMG marketing, Rutgers Alumni Association, Rutgers Athletics and facilities, the R Fund, Rutgers Touchdown Club, Rutgers Court Club and others.

We used to have live captions posted on the jumbotron at SHI Stadium on Busch campus over the years. The Rutgers football stadium needed to have two or more live captions on boards because Rutgers students could not see them from their seats behind the jumbotron.

Rutgers Athletics and SHI Stadium staff finally agreed to add the second live captions on boards for the first time last August.

I was not aware that the stadium would remove live captions on the jumbotron in favor of two LED ribbon boards with smaller font captions. This may be OK for those Deaf and hard-of-hearing fans sitting in the lower level and even the student section. But this may not be OK if Rutgers hosts commencement, concerts or other forms of entertainment. Their focus would be on live captions' to the side rather than the jumbotron or the speaker on stage.

Those Deaf and hard-of-hearing fans who are visitors may sit in the stadium's upper level or other sections and cannot see the small live captions on the boards.

Technically, Rutgers Athletics and Facilities department and the game presenters can adjust the caption size so those who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing can read larger live captions on the LED ribbon boards. They can communicate and work with a highly respected Coast 2 Coast Captioning company that has provided high-quality and accurate captioning services at SHI stadium and Jersey Mike Area.

Unfortunately, Rutgers decided what it wanted to do when placing live captions. I make many recommendations and provide feedback based on my experience at Rutgers as I advocate instrumental changes.

I advocate for American Sign Language (ASL), Deaf awareness events and live captions for the New Jersey and New York metropolitan sports venues I attend, including college and professional teams. By working with departments such as guest experience, diversity, equity and inclusion, game presentation, facilities and athletics, I ensure all is good for those who are Deaf.

We would love to have live captions back on Rutgers SHI Stadium's jumbotron and keep two LED live captions boards, but we would like the captions to be larger.

After years of advocating ASL, Rutgers' marketing and game presentation departments finally had an ASL anthem signer last September 16 during its football game against Virginia Tech. I would like to see more of this at Rutgers women's and men's basketball games. Rutgers has a long-standing, awesome ASL department, and I feel we can do better. I was also involved and advocated for greater accessibility at sporting events, such as mobile captioning QR code scan advertisements and ASL signers during public announcements on jumbotrons. Rutgers Athletics does not have that yet, and hopefully, we can have it when Rutgers football hosts future ASL events.

But I want to say thank you to everyone for their love and awesome support. We must continue to advocate for ASL, larger live captioning and other accessibility issues so it can be a great inclusive experience for everyone.

Gary Noll is a Rutgers alum.

Editor's note: This article previously stated that Noll was involved in captioning in 2015. He was involved in 2014 with the list of organizations that follows. The title has also been modified from "SHI Stadium needs to improve captioning, continue American Sign Language advocacy."

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