A Place to Succeed
Meet a few of the students, alumni, faculty and staff who have found success at RIT/NTID.
Dylan Heuer
Like many students, Dylan Heuer constantly dreams about summer. It’s not just the warm weather and more relaxed schedule he enjoys - he can’t wait to work again.
For the past two years, Heuer, 19, of Des Moines, Iowa, worked in the press box of the Iowa Cubs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.
“When baseball season starts, I’m all excited again,” he says. “For me, baseball is life.”
His infatuation started when he was 9 years old and attended a baseball camp. There, he met players from the Iowa Cubs. He maintained those connections and in 2006 became a batboy for the team.
A year later, he moved up to the press box, compiling statistics for the team and providing images for the scoreboard. He continued that job this past summer.
“I have to watch every aspect of the game,” he says.
Heuer became deaf when he was 7 months old due to meningitis; he received a cochlear implant when he was 3. His hearing loss doesn’t affect his job.
“Sometimes it’s hard to communicate with other people, if they talk too fast or mumble. I just ask them to repeat,” he says.
Heuer impressed the team so much, they nominated him to serve as a bat boy for the Chicago Cubs in 2007. He did that twice, and was even in the dugout when a fight between teammates Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett made national news.
Although he has his favorite players— Ryan Theriot and Rich Hill of the Chicago Cubs, and former Cub Bobby Hill—he never asks for autographs from the players.
“To me, they’re normal, everyday people who happen to be good at baseball,” he says. “Just being part of the team and knowing the players and having the players know me too is the best part of the job.”
Heuer chose to attend RIT/NTID because he heard “that they have a great program in New Media Publishing,” which is his major.
“I think that will be the best fit for me in the future if I want to work for a major league baseball team after graduation,” he says.
From the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of FOCUS magazine