The Penalty Box: A good ending to 2020
December 31, 2020 at 2:55 a.m.
The Penalty Box: A good ending to 2020
By Roger Grossman-
So much of this year has been written off as “the worst year ever” and “a year of our lives lost to a virus.”
These sentiments aren’t necessarily wrong.
I hope, as we look back on 2020, we understand that the people who have not only emotionally survived but have thrived in this pandemic-altered year were those who took their circumstances and sought out solutions instead of wallowing in them.
For my last column of this wretched year filled with death, sadness and despair, I would like to offer a shaft of light.
The Texas School for the Deaf is located in the state’s capital, Austin.
Like many schools, they offered their students the option to minimize the risk of COVID-19 by watching their classes from home on computers and mobile devices.
So many students, who were also football players, took the school up on that offer that they didn’t have enough to field a football team as they had so many years before.
School officials had a choice to make.
They could have just given in to COVID and shut down their season, and no one would have blamed them. No one except their students, of course.
See, the purpose of this school runs deeper than that of most others. It’s trying to teach its students how to live in a world of sound without being able to hear those sounds.
In their mission statement, it says they aim to “show students, families, and staff dignity and respect in an inclusive community that values diverse abilities, needs, and interests is crucial to creating a healthy, safe, and welcoming environment.”
Cancelling things just didn’t seem to fit inside that mission.
So they looked at the number of players they had, which was 20, and they decided to play 6-Man football.
In “6-Man”, the field is only 80 yards long by 40 yards wide instead of 100 by 53. All six players are eligible to handle the ball. You need to get 15 yards to get a first down. Kicking field goals are 4 points (not 3) and you get two points for kicking the point-after-touchdown conversion and only one for running a play for it.
It would be the local equivalent to playing 3-on-3 basketball with varsity players in the Sacred Heart School Gym.
It didn’t start off well.
In their first game of the season, TSD lost to Veritas 58-25.
They won their next four, which was the last four of their season, and set them up for the playoffs.
By the end of the regular season, the Rangers’ three-man coaching staff had figured out how the players they had fit into the rules and strategies of 6-Man, and they got really good at it.
And now you are begging me to answer the question “How do deaf football players play football? How do they know when to snap the ball? How do they call plays?”
They signal in the plays like a lot of teams do, but how they know when to snap it is just extraordinary.
They have someone on the sideline with a baseball bat and a bass drum. When it’s time to snap the ball, the person with the bat hits the drum as hard as they can.
Again, I know what you’re thinking: “Rog, what good does the drum do—they still can’t hear that either, right?”
Right.
The players feel the vibration of the contact of the bat on the drum head, and they move on it.
No, I am not kidding.
When I got my basketball official’s license in 1986, my first game was at the Indiana School of the Deaf. When I arrived, the athletic director told me “They will stop when you blow the whistle…they will feel the vibration of it on their bodies.” And they did.
And the other question you have…the answer is “no—they almost never have false start penalties.”
The Rangers lost their first game, but then won their last four of the season and their first two playoff games. That put them into the 1A State Championship against Veritas. Yes, that same team that had blown them out in Week 1.
They won the Texas 6-Man 1A Championship, avenging their 33-point loss to Veritas in their opener with a 63-32 win in the state final.
For TSFD, their season had come full-circle.
They were deaf and COVID had depleted their roster and everything was against them…and they figured out a way to play anyway. And they chose excellence over mediocre. They took no shortcuts because they were not afforded those luxuries. And they are champions. But if you think about it, we didn’t need them to win a football game to know that, did we?
So, when you get bogged down with what you can’t do, take a few minutes and think about the Texas School for the Deaf Rangers and listen to what these kids have told us all, loudly and clearly.
Happy New Year!
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So much of this year has been written off as “the worst year ever” and “a year of our lives lost to a virus.”
These sentiments aren’t necessarily wrong.
I hope, as we look back on 2020, we understand that the people who have not only emotionally survived but have thrived in this pandemic-altered year were those who took their circumstances and sought out solutions instead of wallowing in them.
For my last column of this wretched year filled with death, sadness and despair, I would like to offer a shaft of light.
The Texas School for the Deaf is located in the state’s capital, Austin.
Like many schools, they offered their students the option to minimize the risk of COVID-19 by watching their classes from home on computers and mobile devices.
So many students, who were also football players, took the school up on that offer that they didn’t have enough to field a football team as they had so many years before.
School officials had a choice to make.
They could have just given in to COVID and shut down their season, and no one would have blamed them. No one except their students, of course.
See, the purpose of this school runs deeper than that of most others. It’s trying to teach its students how to live in a world of sound without being able to hear those sounds.
In their mission statement, it says they aim to “show students, families, and staff dignity and respect in an inclusive community that values diverse abilities, needs, and interests is crucial to creating a healthy, safe, and welcoming environment.”
Cancelling things just didn’t seem to fit inside that mission.
So they looked at the number of players they had, which was 20, and they decided to play 6-Man football.
In “6-Man”, the field is only 80 yards long by 40 yards wide instead of 100 by 53. All six players are eligible to handle the ball. You need to get 15 yards to get a first down. Kicking field goals are 4 points (not 3) and you get two points for kicking the point-after-touchdown conversion and only one for running a play for it.
It would be the local equivalent to playing 3-on-3 basketball with varsity players in the Sacred Heart School Gym.
It didn’t start off well.
In their first game of the season, TSD lost to Veritas 58-25.
They won their next four, which was the last four of their season, and set them up for the playoffs.
By the end of the regular season, the Rangers’ three-man coaching staff had figured out how the players they had fit into the rules and strategies of 6-Man, and they got really good at it.
And now you are begging me to answer the question “How do deaf football players play football? How do they know when to snap the ball? How do they call plays?”
They signal in the plays like a lot of teams do, but how they know when to snap it is just extraordinary.
They have someone on the sideline with a baseball bat and a bass drum. When it’s time to snap the ball, the person with the bat hits the drum as hard as they can.
Again, I know what you’re thinking: “Rog, what good does the drum do—they still can’t hear that either, right?”
Right.
The players feel the vibration of the contact of the bat on the drum head, and they move on it.
No, I am not kidding.
When I got my basketball official’s license in 1986, my first game was at the Indiana School of the Deaf. When I arrived, the athletic director told me “They will stop when you blow the whistle…they will feel the vibration of it on their bodies.” And they did.
And the other question you have…the answer is “no—they almost never have false start penalties.”
The Rangers lost their first game, but then won their last four of the season and their first two playoff games. That put them into the 1A State Championship against Veritas. Yes, that same team that had blown them out in Week 1.
They won the Texas 6-Man 1A Championship, avenging their 33-point loss to Veritas in their opener with a 63-32 win in the state final.
For TSFD, their season had come full-circle.
They were deaf and COVID had depleted their roster and everything was against them…and they figured out a way to play anyway. And they chose excellence over mediocre. They took no shortcuts because they were not afforded those luxuries. And they are champions. But if you think about it, we didn’t need them to win a football game to know that, did we?
So, when you get bogged down with what you can’t do, take a few minutes and think about the Texas School for the Deaf Rangers and listen to what these kids have told us all, loudly and clearly.
Happy New Year!
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