Derrick Coleman came to training camp as a long shot, an undrafted rookie at the same position as Adrian Peterson, Toby Gerhart and a few others ahead of him on the depth chart.

Coleman isn't afraid of challenges, though. He's kicked down barriers his whole life and never let his severe hearing disability become an excuse for failure. He refuses to let anything compromise his drive to reach whatever goal he sets for himself.

"I never let it hold me back," he said. "Not once."

Technically, Coleman is hard of hearing, a condition caused by a missing gene and diagnosed at age 3. He wears hearing aids and is an expert at reading lips.

Without hearing aids, Coleman hears only the bass in people's voices. His hearing aids amplify sounds, but any setting with background noise requires him to read lips. That obviously could be problematic in football, but like everything else in his life, Coleman has adapted to the situation. In the huddle, he reads his quarterback's lips to get the play call. If he's unsure, he grabs the quarterback to double check. more..