The girls soccer team at Attleboro’s Bishop Feehan High School is among the best in Massachusetts — and they happen to have a talented forward on their team who has never let her disability slow her down.
In fact, embracing it has led to a major honor for number 17 Tia Labrecque.
“I got hearing aids when I was six months old,” Labrecque said, explaining she was born with hearing loss in both ears.
“I’ve been more confident, especially in school, I had an interpreter for most of my life — except now,” she said.
“She’s taken what some would consider a disadvantage and yet here she is one of the premiere soccer players in Massachusetts,” coach Phil Silve said.
She’s been so good that she just recently earned a spot on the United States Women’s Deaf National Team. She will get to represent her country in November when they travel to Tokyo.
“I always thought there was just a regular USA women’s national team, and then once we discovered this, I was like oh my gosh I really want to be on this team.”
The 16-year-old will be the youngest on the roster.
“It’s like having 20 older sisters on the team and I love it,” Labrecque said.
“It is pride beyond,” Kimberly Labrecque said of her daughter’s achievement.
Labrecque’s parents immediately became part of the deaf community, and Kimberly became an advocate. She was part of a group of moms who helped pass a state law mandating that insurance companies pay for hearing aids for people 21 and younger.
“I’ve accomplished something in her, that she is confident in herself, where she knows that this doesn’t define who she is and she can do anything.”