**Chap­ter 16: A Foot­ball? But It’s Not Round**

The shrine of Imam Reza in Mash­had, Iran, attracts mil­lions, more than those who vis­it Mec­ca. For Agh­das Kavan­di, it was a sacred site to pray for her son Kaveh, who was born pro­found­ly deaf. Agh­das ini­tial­ly blamed her­self for Kave­h’s con­di­tion due to a fall dur­ing preg­nan­cy, a belief lat­er con­tra­dict­ed by the dis­cov­ery of a genet­ic link to deaf­ness in the fam­i­ly. She fret­ted over Kaveh’s future, fear­ing he would strug­gle to live inde­pen­dent­ly or form mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships. Her pil­grim­age to the Imam Reza shrine reflect­ed the tra­di­tion­al Shi­ite prac­tice of seek­ing heal­ing.

Born in 1963 in Tehran, Kaveh was a cheer­ful boy, but his life altered when peers noticed he could not hear. This led to exclu­sion and rejec­tion that he still recalls years lat­er. Despite this, Kave­h’s par­ents sent him to a deaf school, where he faced harsh dis­ci­pline and learned a method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that com­bined ges­tures with lip-read­ing called cued speech. While strug­gling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, Kaveh found solace and cama­raderie play­ing soc­cer in the vibrant cos­mopoli­tan atmos­phere of 1960s Tehran, where he formed friend­ships with Ger­man boys who intro­duced him to impres­sive soc­cer tech­niques.

Kaveh excelled in soc­cer, using his deaf­ness to his advan­tage, which allowed him a unique focus on the game. Despite his sport­ing suc­cess, Agh­das remained anx­ious about Kave­h’s future and sought med­ical advice in Paris, where doc­tors con­firmed his deaf­ness was per­ma­nent. Unde­terred, she pur­sued send­ing him to the Amer­i­can School for the Deaf in Con­necti­cut. This plan faced famil­ial oppo­si­tion from Kave­h’s father, who expressed con­cerns about Kave­h’s safe­ty in Amer­i­ca.

After a fam­i­ly loss finan­cial­ly enabled Kave­h’s trip, he left for the U.S. with anoth­er deaf boy. Their first expe­ri­ence was a humor­ous strug­gle to under­stand Amer­i­can foot­ball from a new friend, which Kaveh found odd—but lat­er grew to admire. At the Amer­i­can School for the Deaf, Kaveh felt intim­i­dat­ed by the advanced sign lan­guage skills of his peers but dis­cov­ered his love for foot­ball, quick­ly adapt­ing and excelling in the sport.

Upon grad­u­a­tion, Kaveh moved to Cal­i­for­nia, where he worked at var­i­ous jobs, even­tu­al­ly win­ning a law­suit against an employ­er for dis­crim­i­na­tion. Over time, he built a life marked by suc­cess, cul­mi­nat­ing in a teach­ing posi­tion at the Cal­i­for­nia School for the Deaf in River­side. Agh­das vis­it­ed, proud of her son’s achieve­ments, val­i­dat­ing her sac­ri­fices as Kave­h’s suc­cess brought her peace, rein­forc­ing her faith in her prayers for his well-being.