**Chap­ter 6: On a Roll**

High school foot­ball games often start with play­ers siz­ing up their oppo­nents dur­ing warm-ups. The Cubs, regard­ed as a small team lack­ing in mus­cle mass due to pan­dem­ic restric­tions on weight train­ing, did not exude intim­i­da­tion. Despite their phys­i­cal short­com­ings, they com­pen­sat­ed with fear­less­ness and agili­ty, a trait rec­og­nized by oppos­ing coach­es. Felix Gon­za­les stood out for his impres­sive speed, catch­ing kick­offs, shed­ding tack­les, and achiev­ing a remark­able 4.6 sec­onds in the forty-yard dash.

Trevin Adams, anoth­er key play­er, approached the game with a fear­less mind­set, embody­ing a “war­rior” spir­it as described by Coach Galvin Drake. His pow­er­ful run­ning style involved bar­rel­ing through defend­ers, a trait that even wor­ried his moth­er, Car­ol Adams. Foot­ball con­sumed the Adams fam­i­ly’s time, with prac­tices and game analy­ses dom­i­nat­ing their sched­ules. Though Car­ol often joked about being a “foot­ball wid­ow,” she remained the Cubs’ most ardent sup­port­er, proud of Trevin’s on-field exploits.

Trevin’s quar­ter­back skills masked some of the Cubs’ weak­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly their offen­sive line. He demon­strat­ed this in a game where he evad­ed mul­ti­ple defend­ers, show­cas­ing both his elu­sive­ness and tough­ness. Cody Met­zn­er, who played var­i­ous posi­tions and pos­sessed both brute strength and aca­d­e­m­ic ambi­tion, sim­i­lar­ly aimed to intim­i­date oppo­nents. His stand­out play dur­ing a game against Hes­pe­ria Chris­t­ian illus­trat­ed his phys­i­cal dom­i­nance, mak­ing pow­er­ful tack­les that had an imme­di­ate impact.

As part of a deaf team, the Cubs faced unique chal­lenges in a hear­ing world. The cama­raderie among them cre­at­ed a “broth­er­hood,” which strength­ened their team dynam­ic and fueled their deter­mi­na­tion to suc­ceed. This shared expe­ri­ence fos­tered deep con­nec­tions, mak­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion effort­less among team­mates.

Felix Gon­za­les under­stood the weight of being mis­un­der­stood, hav­ing faced com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers on a hear­ing team. After trans­fer­ring to CSDR and meet­ing Coach Adams, he reluc­tant­ly joined the foot­ball team, which ulti­mate­ly led to an unde­feat­ed sea­son. His expe­ri­ence on the deaf team pro­vid­ed an instant bond and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lead­ing him to dis­cov­er his pas­sion for the sport. Now a role mod­el for younger play­ers, Felix excelled in mul­ti­ple posi­tions, prov­ing to be a ver­sa­tile ath­lete and a key con­trib­u­tor to the Cubs’ suc­cess.