OAN’s James Meyers
12:55 PM – Friday, October 6, 2023
AT&T has developed a one of a kind football helmet for Gallaudet University, which is the global leader in bilingual education for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, in Washington, D.C.
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The newest groundbreaking technology is a 5G-connected helmet that will make it easier for coaches and players to communicate. It was unveiled on Thursday.
Additionally, the helmet allows coaches on the sidelines to select a play from a tablet that will appear inside the helmet on a lens. The quarterback wearing the helmet will be receiving the play in augmented reality on the digital display located within the visor.
“We work out the same way as every other college football program. We practice the same way, we compete the same way,” Gallaudet head football coach Chuck Goldstein said in a press release. “The difference between coaching a hearing team compared to a deaf team is, first, the communication. The AT&T 5G-connected helmet will change football.”
“The new AT&T 5G-connected helmet will have a major impact on the game of football, especially for our deaf and hard-of-hearing players who lacked direct access to communications with their coaches during their high school years,” special teams coordinator and former Gallaudet player Shelby Bean added.
“This will help to level the playing field for mainstreamed athletes. As a former player, I am very excited to see this innovative technology change our lives and the game of football itself,” Bean continued.
The finished product reveal comes after close to two years of communication between the team and the telecommunications giant. The two came up with the idea as a way to help the deaf community be more included with its 5G network.
“We came up with ideas on how to make this helmet more effective (and) we’d interact with (players and coaches),” said Corey Anthony, AT&T senior VP of networking engineering and operations. “They would give us feedback. We’d go back, make changes, work on it. It’s just a beautiful relationship that we have with that university.”
“This is probably one of the more sort of exciting and enriching projects that we’ve worked on in a very long time,” he said.
The university will debut the new helmets against Hilbert College on October 7th.
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