In the after­math of a cel­e­brat­ed vic­to­ry, the mood on the field was bit­ter­sweet. A. C. Swadling, a play­er, repeat­ed­ly queried whether the Cubs could hear him as they passed each oth­er dur­ing the tra­di­tion­al post-game hand­shake. This con­fu­sion arose from the pres­ence of Gio Vis­co, who is pro­found­ly deaf yet part of the win­ning team. Swadling’s assump­tions about a deaf team tri­umph­ing over Faith Bap­tist, a for­mi­da­ble eight-man foot­ball team, high­light­ed an under­ly­ing prej­u­dice, demon­strat­ing that even in vic­to­ry, the Cubs faced mock­ery, albeit unknow­ing­ly.

On the Cubs’ side, jubi­la­tion filled the air as they gath­ered around Jim Per­ry, an offi­cial from the Cal­i­for­nia Inter­scholas­tic Fed­er­a­tion. He con­grat­u­lat­ed them with a plaque while fans encir­cled the team. How­ev­er, the cheers were delayed as the team sought trans­la­tion from Julie Hur­diss, their inter­preter. Per­ry spoke of the numer­ous schools wish­ing they could com­pete, slight­ly mis­count­ing the num­ber as 650 instead of the actu­al 560. Coach Adams received the tro­phy with pride, lift­ing it high as the fans cheered.

Despite the cel­e­bra­tion, Felix Gon­za­les, observ­ing from the side­lines on crutch­es, felt con­flict­ed about the vic­to­ry. He reflect­ed on the pre­vi­ous year’s 74–22 defeat and expressed regret over not being able to play, yet he was inspired by his team­mates’ per­for­mance and their abil­i­ty to turn the game around.

In the eupho­ria of the moment, the specifics of how the Cubs trans­formed from defeat to vic­to­ry remained elu­sive, almost like a hid­den strength they had all tapped into. Coach Jor­dan Ollis of Chad­wick acknowl­edged the Cubs’ dom­i­nance with­out their star play­er, Felix, and com­mend­ed their excep­tion­al per­for­mance through­out the sea­son.

Coach Adams, reflect­ing on the sig­nif­i­cance of the achieve­ment, remem­bered his own jour­ney filled with rejec­tion due to his deaf­ness. He cel­e­brat­ed how the team show­cased what deaf ath­letes could accom­plish when unit­ed, rein­forc­ing that deaf­ness was not a lim­i­ta­tion but a unique strength. As the fes­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ued, shared laugh­ter danced between past regrets and future aspi­ra­tions, embody­ing a nar­ra­tive of resilience that felt almost cin­e­mat­ic. Adams con­clud­ed with an inspir­ing sen­ti­ment, advo­cat­ing that deaf indi­vid­u­als could tran­scend expec­ta­tions and suc­ceed in all endeav­ors, a tes­ta­ment mir­rored in their cham­pi­onship vic­to­ry .