- November 1, 2024
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Having been born blind, Trent Ferguson – a senior at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind – views his condition not as a hindrance but an opportunity to view things from a different light. And he’s right.
For Flagler County’s biggest game of the year, Trent accompanied the WNZF high school football broadcasting team to chat sports and add color commentary to the others’ play-by-play game analysis, thereby achieving a part of his lifelong dream to become a sportscaster.
Trent has enjoyed a relationship with WNZF, as he has frequently sat in with Free-for-Fall Fridays host David Ayres, and he hosts a podcast show “Outta Sight (available on soundcloud.com” with sports field reporter Rich Carroll. He birthed all of that from previously recording public service announcements about texting and driving for the station.
Because he was born blind, I had to ask him a couple of questions to understand how he has been able to commentate on games. He’s never seen people, a football or a football field, and he has no visual reference. So, how is all of this possible?
Well, he’s spent his entire life around people. And Trent loves to throw the football around with his friends. He’s run up and down football fields has learned the field dimensions. He knows a lot more than I assumed, and, based on his podcasts, you’d never know that he couldn’t see what he was talking about. He spot on in his takes.
Little drummer boy
When Trent isn’t taking in his Tampa Bay Rays games or hanging out with Rich, he likes to make music and play with his band “Outta Sight.”
“Learning how to play drums is probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “Growing up, I would always beat on the washing machine and dinner tables.”
Trent becomes the latest human wonder that takes away the excuses for not going after our dreams.