Chap­ter 5: Hear­ing with Your Eyes high­lights the unique chal­lenges and hid­den advan­tages faced by deaf indi­vid­u­als in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly hear­ing world. While many may focus on the lim­i­ta­tions of deaf­ness, this chap­ter under­scores how these very chal­lenges can be trans­formed into strengths. For exam­ple, deaf indi­vid­u­als are not dis­tract­ed by the ambi­ent noise that often over­whelms hear­ing peo­ple in places like crowd­ed bars or sta­di­ums. This abil­i­ty to fil­ter out sur­round­ing noise proved par­tic­u­lar­ly advan­ta­geous for deaf scu­ba divers, who can eas­i­ly com­mu­ni­cate under­wa­ter, and deaf foot­ball play­ers, who were able to neu­tral­ize the crowd’s noise—traditionally con­sid­ered a pow­er­ful “twelfth man” in sports. In these con­texts, what many would view as a hin­drance became an asset, allow­ing for clear­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion and bet­ter focus.

Trevin Adams, the Cubs’ quar­ter­back, exem­pli­fied this per­spec­tive by view­ing his deaf­ness as a strate­gic advan­tage. With­out the dis­trac­tions of ver­bal trash talk or the con­stant chat­ter from oppos­ing play­ers, Trevin could focus sole­ly on the game, enhanc­ing his con­cen­tra­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing. This focus was echoed by many oth­er deaf indi­vid­u­als who reject the tra­di­tion­al nar­ra­tive that deaf­ness is a dis­abil­i­ty. Instead, they embrace it as a con­di­tion that fos­ters resilience and per­se­ver­ance. In this light, their expe­ri­ences of adver­si­ty not only shape their men­tal for­ti­tude but also empow­er them to approach chal­lenges with a mind­set geared towards over­com­ing obsta­cles, rather than suc­cumb­ing to them.

The Cubs devel­oped inven­tive solu­tions to over­come the demands of the foot­ball game, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it came to com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In a tra­di­tion­al foot­ball set­ting, the snap count is usu­al­ly called out ver­bal­ly, but this posed a chal­lenge for the deaf play­ers. Ini­tial­ly, a bass drum was used to pro­vide rhythm for the snap count, but this method was lat­er replaced with a more effec­tive sys­tem. The quar­ter­back would sim­ply clap his hands to sig­nal the rhythm, allow­ing play­ers to respond visu­al­ly rather than rely­ing on audi­to­ry cues. This adap­ta­tion, which depend­ed on pre­cise visu­al coor­di­na­tion, was some­thing that the deaf play­ers had already honed in their dai­ly lives, where visu­al cues were the pri­ma­ry means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Stud­ies have shown that indi­vid­u­als who are pro­found­ly deaf may devel­op height­ened periph­er­al vision and a more acute sense of bio­log­i­cal move­ment per­cep­tion. These advan­tages proved ben­e­fi­cial on the foot­ball field, where the Cubs could react more quick­ly to the move­ments of oppos­ing play­ers. Their height­ened visu­al acu­ity allowed them to read plays and antic­i­pate move­ments in ways that gave them an edge over their hear­ing coun­ter­parts. The abil­i­ty to per­ceive and inter­pret move­ments more rapid­ly helped the Cubs adjust their strat­e­gy on the fly, mak­ing them for­mi­da­ble oppo­nents on the field.

The Cubs’ use of sign lan­guage fur­ther enhanced their com­mu­ni­ca­tion and strat­e­gy exe­cu­tion, pro­vid­ing them with a tac­ti­cal advan­tage that was vir­tu­al­ly unde­tectable to their oppo­nents. The team employed a cod­ed sign sys­tem to keep their plays con­fi­den­tial, a method that thwart­ed efforts from teams bring­ing inter­preters to gain insight into their tac­tics. Fast-paced ASL con­ver­sa­tions allowed the Cubs to make quick, effi­cient deci­sions with­out the need for tra­di­tion­al hud­dles, which often slowed down the game. This made their offense more dynam­ic and hard­er to pre­dict, as the oppos­ing teams could not deci­pher their strat­e­gy in real time.

One mem­o­rable moment high­light­ed the Cubs’ inge­nu­ity when they used their sign lan­guage sys­tem to deceive their oppo­nents dur­ing a crit­i­cal play. The quar­ter­back, with the help of coor­di­nat­ed sign­ing, dis­tract­ed the oppos­ing team’s defense, cre­at­ing an open­ing for a suc­cess­ful touch­down pass. This clever use of their unique com­mu­ni­ca­tion method not only show­cased the Cubs’ tac­ti­cal cre­ativ­i­ty but also rein­forced the impor­tance of their deaf­ness as an asset. Coach Kei­th Adams was espe­cial­ly proud of this play, see­ing it as a per­fect exam­ple of how the Cubs had turned poten­tial chal­lenges into cel­e­brat­ed vic­to­ries. The Cubs’ suc­cess on the field demon­strat­ed that their abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate and adapt to their cir­cum­stances was a key fac­tor in their abil­i­ty to thrive in com­pet­i­tive sports.