The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory

The Boys of Riverside is the debut nonfiction book by American journalist Thomas Fuller. The book chronicles two seasons with the California School for the Deaf, Riverside’s football team, following players and coaches as they seek a championship title. Major themes in the book include the Importance of Sign Language Education, the Benefits of Deafness in Football, and the Value of Team Sports for Identity Formation. 

This summary references the 2024 Doubleday eBook edition.

Summary

The California School for the Deaf, Riverside was founded in 1949 and welcomed its first class in 1953. In its history, the CSDR’s football team has only had nine winning seasons. When journalist Thomas Fuller learned the team was undefeated in their 2021 season, he decided to quit his job and follow the team on their journey to the state championship.

For Phillip Castaneda, a Deaf homeless teenager living in a car across from the school, football provided motivation for attending school. On the first day of the 2021 season, Phillip and his new teammates (who hadn’t practiced since the pandemic began) struggled with conditioning exercises. Even though the Cubs’ first game of the season against the Noli Indian School Braves was a blowout, the coaches felt it was too early to draw conclusions about the season. For players like Felix Gonzales, playing for the Cubs helped to heal the pain of being excluded from hearing teams and yelled at by hearing coaches. The players’ deafness offered concrete advantages to the Cubs: they were able to ignore opposing fans boos and trash talk, and their signed play calls were unintelligible to the opposing team. When the Cubs defeated the talented players of Calvary Christian, coach Keith Adams grew cautiously optimistic.

In September, Dominic Turner transferred to CSDR and joined the team. Dominic had a cochlear implant, a controversial device that allows Deaf people some hearing ability. As the Cubs continued to win, Fuller published an article about the team, bringing fame and an influx of resources to CSDR. Reporters and television programs traveled with the team to Catalina Island for the championship semifinal. The Cubs narrowly defeated Avalon High School, sending them to the championship game of the Southern California Interscholastic Federation. The players and coaches had a week to prepare and recover from their brutal game in Catalina. As the Southern California Deaf community rallied around CSDR, the championship game was moved away from the campus to a larger stadium.

Nearly 3000 people attended the championship game, along with several media outlets. After a physical first half, the Cubs trailed their opponents 50-22. Unable to score in the second half, they lost the game 74-22. Despite the loss, the Cubs’ fans remained in the stadium for the entire game. The Cubs were invited to the 2022 Super Bowl, where they recommitted as a team to winning the championship the following season.

As the 2022 season began, Phillip Castaneda was kicked off the team after taking younger students to a cannabis store. Meanwhile, the team’s backup center, Andrei Voinea, aimed to transition to a starting lineman position. In the Cubs’ first game of the season against the wealthy, military-trained Chadwick school, the Cubs won 54-16. Their next game, against their historical rivals the California School for the Deaf, Fremont, was another blowout with the Cubs winning 54-6. Subsequent blowout wins against the Indiana and Florida schools for the Deaf brought the Cubs’ record to 5-0, ranking them second of the 105 teams in California’s eight-man football league.

In the next game, star player Felix Gonzales shattered his tibia on a play, ending his season and devastating his teammates. Despite the loss of Gonzales, the team won the game and were ranked first in the eight-man league, making them likely to be first seed in the championship playoffs. In Gonzales’s absence, younger players were given more game time, boosting the team’s overall confidence. As the playoffs approach, the team lost two more starting players: wide receiver Jory Valencia and lineman Christian Jimenez. Despite the loss of three of their star players, the Cubs managed to win their semifinal game. Two days before the championship game, Jimenez convinced his parents and teammates to let him play with a fractured leg, wearing a brace.

The 2022 championship game was a rematch of the 2021 championship, with the Cubs facing their old rivals, Faith Baptist. After a tight first quarter, the Cubs dominated the second and went into halftime leading Faith Baptist 42-12. For coach Keith Adams, the game brought up bittersweet memories of his own struggles to play football on hearing teams in high school and college. The Cubs dominated the second half and won the championship game 80-26.

Interwoven with the primary narrative, Fuller includes historical and medical research about deafness and Deaf Culture. Although activists and scholars now understand the value of sign language, historically, Deaf people were forced to lip read, and institutions like CSDR banned sign language. In the present day, technologies like smartphones and FaceTime allow Deaf people to communicate with each other and hearing people more easily than ever. Neurological studies show that sign language triggers the same part of the brain as spoken speech. Linguists argue that sign languages are as complex and natural as other spoken languages. Fuller attributes the Cubs’ success to their shared identity as Deaf athletes in a hearing world.