Friday, December 02, 2005

The important family finds 99 french fries

I was watching the first episode of the new Nightline, new as in post-Ted-Koppel, which featured a story about a very unusual foo-ball team. [Football is a game played around the world with a spherical ball, two goalies, etc.; foo-ball is an American game played with a pointy ball and plastic helmets.] This particular foo-ball team is unusual because all of the players and the coach are deaf: hence the title of this blog entry.

What on earth does "The important family finds 99 french fries" have to do with deaf foo-ball players? If you can't see any connection, then you probably don't speak American Sign Language. Try this: write the sentence down on a piece of paper and give it to a friend who speaks ASL. (If your friend speaks SEE-sign, it won't work quite as well.)

The Riverside Cubs went from a winless 0–10 record a few years ago to an undefeated 10–0 season in 2005, thanks largely to Coach Adams. Within my lifetime, deaf people were exempt from federal income tax because they were considered incapable of earning a living. I'm not a big foo-ball fan, but I'll wave my hands and bang a big bass drum for the Riverside Cubs for giving a glimpse of what human beings can do with a little determination.