DEAF FOOTBALL TEAM WAS UNDERESTIMATED AND MOCKED ... UNTIL THEY STARTED BEATING THE PANTS OFF OPPONENTS

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Deaf Football Team Was Underestimated and Mocked — Until They Started 'Beating the Pants Off' Opponents (Exclusive)

For 70 years the team at California's School for the Deaf in Riverside couldn’t win a season. Then they won two — back-to-back — and don't plan on slowing down

By Lizzie Hyman  Published on August 23, 2024 03:30PM EDT

 

With minutes left before halftime in the California School for the Deaf in Riverside’s 2022 championship football game, Coach Keith Adams and his players had come from behind to gain a narrow lead — and pushed for more.

 

Quarterback Trevin Adams, the coach’s oldest son, threw a desperate pass downfield — and right into the arms of wide receiver Jory Valencia, his childhood best friend, who broke for the end zone.

 

Starting with that touchdown dash, the Cubs, having honed their chemistry and system of football-specific sign language over countless hours, began steamrolling their way into history as the first deaf football team in the state to be crowned champions.

 

“We showed that we’re not only equal to others,” Trevin, 19, says now of their 80-26 win. “We’re better.”

 

After that first championship in their division, the Cubs, who play a mix of hearing and deaf teams, won a second in 2023 and have no intention of slowing down in the new season, which starts on Friday, Aug. 30.

 

“We’re here to keep that streak going, to honor that legacy,” says 17-year-old Kaden Adams, who stepped into the role of first-string quarterback since brother Trevin graduated.

 

Their wins turned the boys into community heroes — at one point, thousands packed the stands — and attracted a national spotlight. New York Times correspondent Thomas Fuller was so inspired, he gave up his job to document the Cubs’ rise in a new book, The Boys of Riverside, out now.

 

“It was so quintessentially American,” says Fuller, 54, of being struck by the team’s perseverance. “A team that had endured seven decades of losing seasons was now beating the pants off of all their opponents.”

 

It wasn’t always so. The school’s football program began in the 1950s but for decades was plagued by seasons of defeat — 51 in all. In nearly a dozen of those, the team did not win a game at all.

 

The losses were made more difficult by the discrimination athletes at the school sometimes faced from outsiders. (The Cubs were even mockingly accused of faking their deafness.)

 

But the players say they shrugged off the ignorance. “Just because we can’t hear, it doesn’t mean anything,” Trevin says. “We’ll still crush you.”

 

Their turnaround began in summer of 2021, when the boys returned to school restless and seeking ways to reconnect with one another after the isolation of online classes and pandemic protocols.

 

“COVID made us realize what we were losing out on, and football is a good representation of what brings us together,” says Valencia, 19, a basketball-turned-football player who discovered that he excelled in catching high passes.

 

Riverside’s deaf community is tightly knit, and many of the Cubs players had grown up together. Coach Adams (who, like the other coaches, is also deaf) credits that bond for their success, along with rigorous training, a fleet-footed playing style and the unique ways in which their deafness makes them stronger.

 

California School For The Deaf - Riverside head coach Keith Adams communicates with his players in sign language during a game against a team from the Florida School For The Deaf and Blind on Saturday, Sept.

 

“When you watch deaf players and coaches communicate with each other on the football field, you realize maybe hearing people have a disadvantage,” explains Fuller, describing the speed with which they trade thoughts via sign language. “They are not affected by noise, they can speak over distances. It’s fast; it’s efficient.”

 

The Cubs’ first big win was in late September 2021, when the Division II squad beat Division I Calvary Chapel in a nail-biting 66-57 win that proved their preparation was paying off. “That started waking people up,” Valencia, the wide receiver, says. “It was a shock for us too.”

 

As the Cubs notched more and more victories, their excitement and determination grew.

 

“Hearing people, they’ve had opportunities in the past. They’ll have opportunities in the future to get a championship. But for us, the future’s uncertain,” says Coach Adams. “These boys were eager to change hearing people’s perspectives and get the opportunity they deserve.”

 

In their first-ever championship game, in 2021, with more than 3,000 fans in attendance, the Cubs’ undefeated season ended with a 74-22 loss — and a tough lesson that sometimes the best things in life don’t come easy.

 

“That really showed us what we needed to improve on,” says offensive lineman Christian Jimenez, 18, a cocaptain who transferred to the school to connect with teammates on an all-deaf team.

 

Adds their coach: “After that first loss, they were thinking, ‘Not again. I’m not gonna lose again.’ ”

 

They hardly did. The summer of 2022 was spent in the weight room, and in the two seasons since, the Cubs lost just three times. With each victory, often by double-digit margins, they attracted more fans and earned the respect they knew they long deserved.

 

“That stoked a fire in others to finally take us seriously and become more motivated [to try to] beat Riverside,” says Trevin, then the team’s cocaptain and star player, who inherited his love of football from his dad.

 

“I still had that hunger and that drive. I wanted to feel that for one last time,” he says. “I gave my heart. I gave my all to it, for the Cubs.”

 

A successive championship win in 2023 hasn’t slaked their thirst for a threepeat this fall. “It would be amazing,” says Coach Adams. “That’s very rare, even for a hearing team.”

 

While some of his star players have since moved on to college — Trevin, Jimenez and Valencia are now student athletes at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., following in their coach’s footsteps — Kaden and other Cubs seniors are looking forward to passing along their winning spirit to new teammates this season.

 

“I can already tell we have earned other teams’ respect, and they do see us as equals,” Kaden says. “I think we’re going to have a good year.”