How a Deaf Quarterback Changed the Game of Football

I like stories where the underdog rewrites the rules.

Think Rudy (damn, that movie gives me chilly bumps to this day) running onto the field at Notre Dame, Rocky going toe to toe with Apollo, or the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team taking down the Soviets.

Paul D. Hubbard belongs in that lineup.

He was deaf. He played quarterback at Gallaudet. And he invented something every football team now takes for granted, the huddle. How interesting!!

Who was Paul D. Hubbard

Paul D. Hubbard was born in 1871 in Atchison, Kansas, and he lost his hearing at an early age.

He studied at the Kansas School for the Deaf, then at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, and eventually enrolled at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.

He played quarterback for Gallaudet from 1892 to 1895. After his playing years, he returned to Kansas, where he taught, coached, and later became the first athletic director at the Kansas School for the Deaf.

Hubbard passed away in 1946, but his idea outlived him in a big way.

The moment football changed

In 1894, Gallaudet was playing against other deaf schools.

Hubbard faced a problem no hearing quarterback would ever think about. His play calls were signed in plain sight, and the defense could read every move.

So he pulled his teammates into a tight circle before each snap. The defense could no longer see his hands, and Gallaudet had an edge. The first huddle was born.

That year, Gallaudet went 5–2–1, beating the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf 24–0 and the New York School for the Deaf 20–6.

The strategy worked. And before long, even hearing teams adopted the huddle because it simply made the game better.

The Huddle Lesson

Paul Hubbard did not set out to change the sport; he just needed a simple fix to an immediate, personal problem.

The true lesson is this: the thing that feels like your greatest obstacle might be the very spark that forces you to innovate and change the game forever.