NFL coaches won’t have to cover mouth again

A Long Island special education teacher has revolutionized big-league play-calling with BoomGuard, a simple device that shields coaches’ mouths from potential lip-readers. Inventor Ramone Ward remembers the autumn Sunday in 2005 when it came to him: for all those NFL coaches holding laminated play cards over their mouths and running from cameras to protect their secrets, there had to be a better way. “Someone was going to make a lot of money,” he says. “And I decided that was going to be me.” Less than five years later, Ward’s award-winning BoomGuard device is building a steady following in multiple professional and high school sports, including auto racing and football. — Boom Guard