“Phillip. The story begins before the reporters and the television correspondents flocked to interview the team. Before the offers from movie producers, before the National Football League invited the captains to participate in the Super Bowl coin toss. Before success.”
That’s the beginning to the first chapter of Thomas Fuller’s book The Boys of Riverside: a Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory.
Phillip was one of the players on this eight-man division football team in the Central Valley of California. Their division had 48 teams only a few from deaf schools. In November of 2021, the author, a New York Times correspondent, saw an email reporting on the historic winning season this state-run school of 168 students was having. Fuller went to one of their games and decided this was a story worth telling. The chapters take us through the next year and two championship games, talking about particular players and games and giving historic context to how the world views deaf people. Communicating via sign language gave the team an advantage when playing a hearing team. You’ll even learn one fun fact about where the term huddle came from.
This is a wonderfully written story about a group of boys who become a family based on their shared love of football and their deafness. As the book jacket says this book, “Explores unbreakable chemistry and common purpose, a riveting sports story, and, ultimately, an inspiring human narrative.” My softhearted husband Mark was a huge football fan. He would have loved this story. If you’re a similar football fan, then you really must read The Boys of Riverside by Thomas Fuller.
