How a deaf football team silenced their on-field rivals during undefeated season: ‘Inescapable togetherness’

When a fundraising email from the California Department of Education arrived in reporter Thomas Fuller’s inbox in November 2021, informing him of the unbeaten season that a local school football team were having, he thought little of it — until he realized it was the Cubs, the team from the California School for the Deaf (CSDR) in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

“Something about the Riverside Cubs pulled me in like metal to a magnet,” he writes in ‘The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory” (DoubleDay).

Upon further investigation, Fuller discovered an irresistible tale of triumph over adversity, and in the book he charts the Cubs’ remarkable journey from perennial losers to championship winners for the first time in the school’s 68-year history.

Much of the credit, he explains, goes to the Cubs’ inspirational coach Keith Adams, a deaf athlete himself, who forged an indomitable spirit among his charges. “Teenagers, boys in particular, are known for their adolescent grunt years, for eyes-cast-down, monosyllabic conversations,” Fuller writes of Adams, who is also deaf.

“But there was an important difference for the Cubs, a kind of inescapable togetherness.”

The Cubs players would run through brick walls for Coach Adams — even if they couldn’t walk.

When the Cubs’ fastest player, Felix Gonzales, broke his leg, for example, he was particularly upset as he was close to reaching 2,000 receiving yards.

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Desperate to make the landmark, Gonzales “asked the doctor treating his broken leg whether he could go back into a game just for one play. That’s all he would need to get to the 2,000 mark,” writes Fuller.

“Not surprisingly the doctor said no.”

By fostering a rare bond among them as they emerged from COVID, Adams galvanized his players into something greater than the sum of their parts and was determined that their deafness would never be an obstacle to success. “It’s not something we are going to cry about. Those are the cards that we were dealt.

“And you just have to work harder.”

That hard work was overseen by Adams’ assistant, Galvin Drake, a mountain of a man capable of deadlifting 405 pounds who finished all his text messages with a flexing bicep emoji. “He was the team’s enforcer, lecturing the players on the importance of weightlifting and eating well,” writes Fuller. “No junk food and soda during the season, he told the student athletes.”

As a deaf team playing in a league full of hearing teams, CSDR encountered many practical difficulties in their quest for glory. Before games, an interpreter reminded referees that players wouldn’t be able to hear the whistle and to use hand signals to convey decisions.

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They also had to replace the traditional ‘Ready, Set, Hike!” used to start plays with a silent count as the quarterback clapped his hands rhythmically and the center looked through his legs to snap the ball.

The secret, as Adams explained, was communication and the Cubs system of coded hand-signals ensured everyone knew their role. “The Cubs had another weapon in their arsenal: American Sign Language. They were able to sign to each other from across the field beyond the distance over which voice might easily carry.”

Fuller also cites research showing deaf people can often see better than hearing people in specific situations and that gave the Cubs an advantage. “The neural difference meant that players had not only a potentially wider view of activity on the playing. They could also react more quickly to an opposing team’s moves,” explains Fuller.

“Milliseconds count in football.”

Being deaf had other benefits, as Trevin Adams, Cubs quarterback and son of Coach Adams, explains. “I can’t hear their fans, the crowds or the heckling,” says Trevin who is also deaf. “Trash talk, I can’t hear it. They can get in my face and tell me anything.”

Deafness wasn’t the only issue for some Cubs players.

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Homeless student Phillip Castaneda, for example, slept in his father’s Nissan Sentra each night, getting up each morning and waiting for the nearby Target to open so he could use their bathroom before he headed to CSDR and football practice.

But such was the team spirit Adams created.

“Inside the fence that ringed CSDR, they were at home in language and culture. It was a feeling of belonging amplified in the locker room and on the playing field. Football players at any high school share the bond of brothers in combat. For the Cubs it was an even tighter bond,” writes Fuller.

The Cubs blitzed most everyone they faced.

In 2021, they lost just one game when they were beaten 74-22 by Canoga Park’s Faith Baptist in the championship game. When the teams met again in the title decider a year later, the Cubs avenged that defeat with a crushing 80-26 win to complete an undefeated season.

As the Cubs celebrated, Keith Adams joked the whole experience had been like a film scripted 60 miles west in Hollywood. “It’s a good ending. We beat them with a perfect record. And we’re closing out the movie,” he says.

“Let the credits roll.”

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