The "Only One Team Was Cheering" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Carol and I traveled to Maryland to visit with our daughter and her family.  Our intent was to take in two youth basketball games as well as share some time together with our granddaughters before returning home to Lancaster.  Our granddaughters both play recreational girls basketball in Frederick County and our youngest, Camille, had a game in the morning while Courtney played in the afternoon.  Rainy day with temperatures in the mid-30s.  Crummy day to travel!  Very little traffic greeted us on the roads and we made good time on Route 30W as well as RT15 South.  Had a chance to relax for an hour before it was off to the Urbana Middle School where both games were be held.  

Camille dribbles the ball down the court.

The middle school gym features a full-sized basketball course with standard-height rims. The girls playing in the games today are anything but full-size or standard-size.  But, they do a great job of playing basketball for fun.  Camille's team is one of four Urbana School District teams in the 8 and under category.  These four teams play in the Frederick County Youth League along with teams from other parts of the county.  

Referee Bill explaining what this
young girl did while she attempts
to understand him.

My daughter, Brynn, told me that today's game is against a team from Frederick, MD which is about a twenty-minute drive from the Urbana area.  We arrived in a slight drizzle and entered the gym to be greeted by cheering from the previous game which was still in progress.  Games in the youth bracket are 8 minute quarters with the clock constantly running except for time-outs or personal fouls, which must be very flagrant or the game could last all day.  Game is meant to last 32 minutes with a 5 minute halftime.  My guess is they allow about an hour per game, but the later in the day the games are scheduled, the more chance they may start later than planned.  Camille's game was scheduled for 11:30 AM, but didn't start until close to noon.  As the teams warmed up I noticed that the other team, dressed in black uniforms, were very quiet while all the girls on Camille's team, dressed in blue and white, were yelling to each other.  

Camille stealing the ball from the other team.

Then I struck me!  They were deaf!!  I asked Brynn, "How can 8 year-old girls that can't speak and perhaps hear play basketball against Camille's team?"  "Watch and see.  This team is from the Maryland School of the Deaf in Frederick," she said to me.  Wow, was I amazed.  No, I mean, really amazed!  All girls are required to play man-to-man (yes, I know they are girls) defense to prevent all the girls from trying to get the ball away from the girl with the ball.  Bill, one of two referees who I talked with after the game and found out is my age believe or not, controlled the game.  Both referees carried towels and would throw them or wave them at the girls in black at the same time they blew their whistles for the others.  How they remembered to do that is another amazing feat.  Bill made sure he explained all his calls to the girls so they might not do the same thing again.  All this occurred while the clock was running the 8 minute quarter.  

Guarding against the dribble.

The coaches for the black team were giving sign-language signals to the girls as they played and the girl in black, who would bring the ball up the court after the white team would score or lose the ball, would sign to her coach with one hand while dribbling the ball with the other.  I sat there in amazement the longer the game progressed.  I had come to see my granddaughter play a game of youth basketball and I was getting a free clinic in LIFE.  The Maryland School for the Deaf is a school with campuses in both Columbia and Frederick Maryland that provided free public education for Deaf and hard-of-hearing Maryland residents, from birth to age 18.  

A true study in patience.  Bill holding his towel which was used
to help stop play if the whistle didn't work.  Bill talked with me
after the game when I found out he played midget football
in Lancaster, my hometown, as a kid in the 1950s.

At the Frederick campus about 30% of the more than 300 students live on campus weeknights, since it is too far to bus transport them.  They are fed and sheltered in dorms for different ages and sexes.  The school started in the fall of 1868 with 34 students arriving.  Some walked, some arrived in carriage or on horseback.  Their accommodations back then were two abandoned stone barracks that had housed captured Hessian soldiers during the Revolutionary War.  These barracks are still used along with others that have been added over the years.  All is funded by the taxpayers of Maryland.  My impression of the game today was …… well, Camille's team won the game by a sizable amount, but the Deaf School team won my heart!  I can still see those girls playing their hearts out, even after the whistle sounded, until the end of the game when Bill went up and down the line of both teams giving high-fives to all who played.  Oh yeah, Camille scored 4 of her teams 18 points and …… it felt strange that only one team was cheering.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.