In the fall of 2021, Thomas Fuller, a breaking news reporter for the New York Times, learned about a high school football team steamrolling their opponents on the way to a league championship. The team? The California School for the Deaf, Riverside. In his stirring The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory, Fuller movingly recounts the Riverside Cubs’ rousing tale of courage, hope and triumph on and off the football field.
Many of the Cubs had tried to play for hearing teams, but they faced frustration and ridicule; joining the Cubs, an all-deaf team with an all-deaf coaching staff, gave them a sense of brotherhood, belonging and mission. Fuller profiles Dominic Turner, who always felt alienated playing for hearing schools; with the Cubs, he became the standout defensive player he had yearned to be. Phillip Castaneda was living in a car in the Target parking lot across from the Cubs’ field when he found his way into practice and soon excelled as a lightning-fast running back. Head coach Keith Adams, himself a deaf former athlete, emphasized stamina, endurance and teamwork to his players. Adams’ sons, Trevin and Kaden, played on the Cubs, Trevin leading the team as quarterback because of his passion and talent for the game. “I came to see the Cubs as a flesh-and-blood realization of the American dream,” Fuller writes.
Their opponents from hearing schools would often talk about how embarrassed they’d be to lose to a deaf team. But lose they did. Being deaf gave the Cubs an edge: The noise of the crowd didn’t distract them, and they could communicate effortlessly using sign language, which often confused opposing players. Fuller follows the Cubs through a full season and change, providing game-by-game synopses that never read as dry or sterile. His knack for vivid, fast-paced storytelling animates The Boys of Riverside and puts readers at every game. He illustrates the Cubs’ triumphs to prove to the world that deafness is “no impediment to sporting glory.”
