Riverside School for the Deaf football players participate in Super Bowl coin throwing – Orange County Register

On Sunday, February 13, California School for the Deaf, Riverside football team,A year of ups and downs in our history will end with one final climax: the Super Bowl.

Four Cubs co-captains will play at SoFi . Stadium during the coin toss for Super Bowl LVI.

“The Rams are my favorite team, so this is the right time for us to be invited to the Super Bowl,” said sophomore Jory Valencia, 17. “It was a great honor.”

After the glare of the national spotlight during their championship run, the players were tired of interviews, but the team captains expressed their excitement in a video released by the school on Wednesday. Friday, February 11th.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said young midfielder Trevin Adams, 17.

This year, after almost two years off because of coronavirus pandemicand for the first time in the school’s 68-year history, the Cubs played in a CIF Southern Section championship game. But they faced the unstoppable Faith Baptists of the San Fernando Valley, who beat them 74-22 in the Division 2 final, a Bitter end to a historic season 12-1.

But the Cubs’ story isn’t over yet.

They were invited to SoFi Stadium as guests of the Los Angeles Chargers in November and A movie about Coach Keith Adams is in development. Support poured in from all over the country – including from the governor’s office and “Talk-show host Kelly Clarkson, star of American Idol” – Upgrading the school’s small football field (only about 25 people on each side) and a portable gas-powered light system used to illuminate the field.

The NFL invited Adams and Valencia, along with Christian Jimenez and Enos Zornoza as honorary captains to witness the coin toss.

“The courage of the team showed to other footballers and people around the country that the deaf community defies stereotypes, that they can do anything with hard work and dedication. donate”, one NFL Newsletter read.

They will be there, in uniform, along with the honorary captains tennis legend Billie Jean King, and female soccer players from the Flag Football League of Champions, Inglewood Chargers and Watts Rams, as part of the NFL honoring Title IX’s 50th anniversary and highlighting inclusion and diversity in sports. Two deaf artists will also perform during the break, according to the NFL.

“I think this is the first time we’ve seen deaf people in a new role at the Super Bowl,” school spokeswoman Erika Thompson said Friday. “I don’t think a deaf person has had that honor before. Usually there are only sign language interpreters for the anthem and I think that’s the only way the deaf are represented there. So it’s exciting to have that representation for the hearing public. “

The disappointing end to the Cubs’ football season did not dampen morale.

“Their competitive spirit is still very strong,” Thompson said. “It’s carried over to our basketball season.”

Both girls ‘ and boysThe ‘varsity’ basketball teams have won their first league championship in decades (since 1986 for women, since 1999 for men) and are competing for the CIF-SS titles.

Although it is often forgotten by the hearing world, deaf players have competed from the very beginning. The Group chat was invented in the 1890s by deaf players at Gallaudet University, a private university for the deaf in Washington, DC. They realize that their discussion of plays is being understood by an opponent who knows sign language. The players gathered together to prevent their markings from being seen, and this method was eventually adopted widely by hearing players.

Ironically, the deaf players at Riverside School don’t usually congregate, Thompson said. As far as they know, the Cubs haven’t faced any team that understands sign language, but each team uses codenames for the plays.

Super Bowl Sunday won’t be the end of the Cubs’ story: All but two graduating seniors are expected to play again next year.