In the late 1980s, Roger Adams approached Jim Rubiales, the Lin­coln High School foot­ball coach in Stock­ton, with an unusu­al request regard­ing his deaf son, Kei­th. Kei­th, a junior at the Cal­i­for­nia School for the Deaf in Fre­mont, want­ed to play for Lin­coln, a school known for its strong foot­ball pro­gram. The plan was for Kei­th to attend Lin­coln dur­ing foot­ball sea­son and return to the deaf school in the off­sea­son. Rubiales had no expe­ri­ence with deaf ath­letes but was com­mit­ted to accom­mo­dat­ing Kei­th’s needs, even­tu­al­ly arrang­ing for a trans­la­tor.

Lin­coln High School’s foot­ball lega­cy was sig­nif­i­cant, with a sta­di­um that fre­quent­ly filled to its 6,000 capac­i­ty and pro­duced mul­ti­ple NFL tal­ents, such as Shante Carv­er and Brandin Cooks. Despite ini­tial reser­va­tions about whether Kei­th would adapt to this all-hear­ing team’s dynam­ics, Rubiales and his team were amazed by his per­for­mance. Kei­th played defen­sive end with excep­tion­al skill and feroc­i­ty, earn­ing praise for his phys­i­cal­i­ty and speed. Team­mates often mar­veled at his abil­i­ties, not­ing that he had a refined vision that com­pen­sat­ed for his deaf­ness.

As Kei­th excelled, he gained pop­u­lar­i­ty on cam­pus, leav­ing spec­ta­tors buzzing about his per­for­mances and chal­leng­ing their per­cep­tions about deaf ath­letes. How­ev­er, when it came to col­lege recruit­ment, expec­ta­tions fell short. While scouts rec­og­nized his tal­ent, many back­tracked upon learn­ing about his deaf­ness, effec­tive­ly lim­it­ing his oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tin­ue play­ing foot­ball. Kei­th even­tu­al­ly secured a schol­ar­ship at Cal­i­for­nia Poly­tech­nic State Uni­ver­si­ty, where frus­tra­tions emerged due to inad­e­quate sup­port and unsuc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the trans­la­tor pro­vid­ed by the school.

Feel­ing iso­lat­ed, Kei­th reached out to Rubiales for guid­ance, ulti­mate­ly decid­ing to leave San Luis Obis­po. He trans­ferred to Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where he played as a mid­dle line­backer and expe­ri­enced the cama­raderie he pre­vi­ous­ly lacked. There, he was recon­nect­ed with Car­ol Bel­la, whom he lat­er mar­ried in a cer­e­mo­ny accom­mo­dat­ing both deaf and hear­ing guests.

Years lat­er, Kei­th found ful­fill­ment coach­ing his two sons on an all-deaf foot­ball team, real­iz­ing a long-held dream. This team rep­re­sent­ed a com­mu­ni­ty where every mem­ber under­stood one anoth­er, and win­ning a cham­pi­onship would serve as val­i­da­tion for his jour­ney, under­scor­ing the resilience and deter­mi­na­tion he embod­ied through­out his life.