Gallaudet University

I'm ready.

Gallaudet University student Eric Plunkett was beaten and strangled to death inside his dorm room weeks after starting his freshman year.

A few months later, another student was stabbed to death in his dorm, sparking fear among the students that a killer was hiding among them.

And you pointed it out when we were doing our Patreon, I don't know if this is good or bad timing, because this episode could scare a lot of parents-

Yeah, he didn't let the limitations get in his way

And he graduated with the second-highest academic honors in his 10-student senior class.

Gallaudet University was Eric's first choice for college.

It's a, a private university in Washington, DC for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Go tap me.

I was going to say, we're going to Gallaudet highlights.

That is wicked.

Respect.

Michelle, take it away.

[upbeat music] Walking through the campus of Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Northeast Washington, DC, you might notice some small stone slabs embedded in the grass.

If you look closely, they bear inscriptions.

Some simply have years, 1923, or the class of 1969.

They're gravestones.

But not for people, for rats.

For more than 100 years, the first-year students at Gallaudet University have participated in an unusual, somewhat macabre tradition called the Rat Funeral.

Okay, let's back up a little bit.

Ryan Brown threw for a career high three hundred seventeen yards and three touchdowns to lead Purdue to a forty-four to nineteen win over Indiana State.

Michigan State slipped past Toledo thirty to twenty And Albright beat Gallaudet forty four to seven.

I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News.

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We're only flying to Maine.

So it was Gallaudet leaving the league in January, wherever they left.

We had to find a week three game.

And the only thing we could find was UNE.

Yeah.

He played at Gallaudet university, which is a deaf college.

I had, I knew a guy.

Yeah.

His brother has gone on to win the Golden Boy Award, to play for France.

Gallaudet has decided to go down the kind of ancestral path and play for, I think it's his mother's home nation of Cote d'Ivoire, the Ivory Coast.

I thought he was brilliant at the World Cup.

I thought he really showcased what he can do getting up and down that right flank.