The 8-Person Football Southern Section CIF state championship has been won by a school for the deaf for a second year in a row.
The California School for the Deaf, Riverside Cubs secured the Division 2 title on Saturday against their perennial rivals, Faith Baptist Schools of Canoga Park.
2023’s championship game was the third consecutive one contested by the Cubs and Faith Baptist.
Despite losing key players from last season to Gallaudet University, the “fresh, younger squad” performed better than expected, according to the school, resulting in a winning record.
The Cubs were down 14-0 early in the championship game, which took place amid freezing temperatures at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside on Saturday, but they overcame several turnovers and shifted the course of the game with “miraculous plays into the fourth quarter,” the school said.
All their hard work eventually culminated in a 54-42 victory.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
Off the field, the team is receiving accolades; they are set to be honored by KTLA sister station KUSI as the “Prep Pigskin Report Underdog of the Year” and they have also been the subject of a book authored by New York Times writer Thomas Fuller called The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory.
A parade in front of the school, located at 3044 Horace Street in Riverside, is set to take place on Monday beginning at 2:30 p.m.
For more information on The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory, click here.