On Feb­ru­ary 13, 2022, Super Bowl LVI took place at SoFi Sta­di­um in Ingle­wood, Cal­i­for­nia, high­light­ing a ground­break­ing moment for deaf ath­letes. Amid a roar­ing crowd of sev­en­ty thou­sand, Trevin, Chris­t­ian, Jory, and Enos rep­re­sent­ed not just their team, but the larg­er world of deaf ath­letes. The event sym­bol­ized a cel­e­bra­tion of inclu­sion, with deaf per­form­ers also fea­tured dur­ing half­time, show­cas­ing the NFL’s com­mit­ment to break­ing stereo­types. How­ev­er, despite this joy­ous mile­stone, the boys felt an unre­solved yearn­ing, espe­cial­ly after their recent defeat in a cham­pi­onship game. They cher­ished their his­toric achieve­ment but longed more for vic­to­ry than for the plaque com­mem­o­rat­ing their run­ner-up sta­tus.

Imme­di­ate­ly after the game, Coach Kei­th Adams instilled a sense of pride in his play­ers despite the loss. He empha­sized self-esteem and ral­lied the team around the notion of “unfin­ished busi­ness,” set­ting an opti­mistic tone for the upcom­ing sea­son. The team faced the chal­lenge of los­ing Enos, who was grad­u­at­ing, yet key play­ers like Trevin, Felix, Jory, Cody, Chris­t­ian, and David remained. Coach Adams even con­vinced Kaveh Angoorani to post­pone his retire­ment for anoth­er cham­pi­onship run.

The off­sea­son prac­tices marked­ly changed from pre­vi­ous years. Play­ers will­ing­ly con­vened in the weight room, dri­ven by their desire to enhance their sta­mi­na and strength after a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son. Galvin Drake, the strength coach, not­ed the tran­si­tion from hav­ing to push play­ers to work out to them com­ing in eager to com­pete against one anoth­er, fueled by the mem­o­ry of their loss.

Dur­ing breaks, play­ers like Alfre­do Bal­tazar con­nect­ed with fam­i­ly, shar­ing their jour­ney. Trav­el­ing to Mex­i­co to meet his extend­ed fam­i­ly, he com­mu­ni­cat­ed with them through ges­tures and tex­ting, aim­ing to demon­strate how the deaf team could achieve suc­cess in foot­ball. As the first per­son in his fam­i­ly to play the sport, he sought val­i­da­tion and sup­port from rel­a­tives. In prepa­ra­tion for the next sea­son, Bal­tazar ded­i­cat­ed him­self to rig­or­ous train­ing, trans­form­ing his physique and reaf­firm­ing his com­mit­ment to the game and his team­mates, fos­ter­ing a pro­found sense of iden­ti­ty through foot­ball. His new­found ded­i­ca­tion made him more than just a play­er; it strength­ened his famil­ial bonds and the cama­raderie with his team­mates, under­scor­ing the impact of sports in shap­ing lives.