THE BOYS OF RIVERSIDE

The incredible story of an all-deaf high school football team's triumphant climb from underdog to undefeated, their inspirational brotherhood, a fascinating portrait of deafness in America, and the indefatigable head coach who spearheaded the team, by New York Times reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief, Thomas Fuller.

In November 2021, an obscure announcement put out by the California Department of Education landed in author, Thomas Fuller's inbox. The football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, a state-run school with only 168 high school students, was having an undefeated season. After years of covering wildfires, pandemic, drought, and mass shootings for The New York Times in California the story about this deaf football team captivated him. It was uplifting. During the pandemic's gloom, it was a happy story. It was a sports story but not an ordinary one. It turned on the chemistry between a group of boys and their coach, and the many stereotypes that together they were able to defy. Fuller packed his bags and drove seven hours to the Riverside campus just in time to see them trounce their opponent in the second game of the playoffs. THE BOYS OF RIVERSIDE looks back at the historic 2021 season and follow the California School for the Deaf in 2022. The team was very young in 2021 - there was only one senior - so the Cubs' winning roster remains largely intact. They are looking to avenge their loss in the championship game. The book follows the personal journeys of the coach and players and through their eyes tell stories about the Deaf community. As much as possible THE BOYS OF RIVERSIDE explores the world from a deaf perspective. But at the same time, this is a book about a different way of playing football, using sign language to avoid the need for a huddle (and coding the sign language so that it is unintelligible even to those who can sign). Thomas Fuller is the San Francisco Bureau Chief for The New York Times who has reported from more than 40 countries. He has covered the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, the Iraq War, two military coups in Thailand, life under dictatorship in Myanmar, the Arab Spring and the expansion of the European Union. He has been based in Paris, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Brussels. Since 2016 he has been based in California for the Times and has written widely about homelessness, wildfires, the pandemic and earthquake preparedness. He grew up in the suburbs of New York City and attended the American University in Paris. He lives in the East Bay of San Francisco with his wife and their two children.