Jaylen Johnson brings in a touchdown catch in the fourth quarter that gave Gallaudet some breathing room in the Bison's ODAC opener vs. Averett. His jersey, like the other Gallaudet jerseys, spells out BISON in American Sign Language. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

By Glen Crevier
D3sports.com

Gallaudet University has a football history as unique and rich as any program in the country. It has been a story of both innovations and struggles.

And some important triumphs, too, such as last Saturday's 39-30 home victory over Averett University. It was the Bison’s first win under new coach Stefan LeFors in the program’s debut game in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. 

The Washington, D.C., school, the first university for the deaf and hard of hearing, began play in 1883. A little more than a decade later, the school was credited with inventing the huddle, when quarterback Paul Hubbard used it as a way to prevent opposing deaf teams from stealing their plays in sign language.

New Gallaudet coach Stefan LeFors, in a shirt which reads "You can be a masterpiece and a work in progress," which the team wore in warmups in recognition of mental health awareness. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

In 2023, the school used an AT&T developed 5G connected helmet to communicate plays to the quarterback.

But in the past century, the program has also faced its share of hardships and was discontinued several times. After an undefeated 2005 season as a club team, a successful campaign resulted in Gallaudet regaining NCAA Division III status. 

It thrived for 15 years under coach Chuck Goldstein and reached the NCAA Division III playoffs in 2013 and again in 2022 after a 5-1 season in the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference, a league of independent colleges that stretched up and down the east coast. 

Now, more challenges await. LeFors took over for Goldstein, who stepped down following the 2024 season. He is installing a spread offense, converting from the program’s tradition of running the triple option. When the ECFC disbanded, Gallaudet stepped up to a more challenging and competitive conference — the ODAC.

So far, so good under LeFors. The Bison is 1-1 as it prepares to travel to Roanoke College on Saturday. And yes, there is delight in seeing Gallaudet perched at the top of the conference standings — if only for a week. 

“It was great,” LeFors said of Saturday’s victory. “It was good to see the fruits of your labor. We got a taste of what it feels like to win. Hopefully we can build on it.”

LeFors would seem the ideal coach to lead the program into a new era.

He has a distinguished football pedigree, having been a star quarterback at Louisville, Conference USA player of the year, MVP in the Liberty Bowl and later spent time in both the National Football League with the Carolina Panthers and the Canadian Football League with the Edmonton Eskimos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. As a coach, his teams were 86-20 in nine seasons at Christian Academy of Louisville with two Kentucky 2A state titles and 47-24 in six seasons at Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge. Later this fall he’ll be inducted into the University of Louisville Athletics Hall of Fame. 

In addition, LeFors is a child of deaf adults (CODA), so he is uniquely familiar with the challenges of building the Gallaudet program.

“It feels like a full circle moment,” he said. “I grew up in a deaf household. So I was raised in that world and then of course football is a huge part of my life. My brother was a part of this program in the late 1990s. So when this job opened up I thought, ‘You know, maybe this is a calling for me.’”

LeFors was named coach of the Bison in late April. He scrambled to recruit, even holding a school-wide tryout, and implemented a new pro-style offense after the program’s many years of emulating the service academies’ run-oriented attack.

While he did find a few players at the tryout who have made impacts on defense and special teams, Gallaudet still faces roster struggles. “We have about 62 players and 30 of them are first-year,” LeFors said. “So we are really working to set up future success and a sustainable culture. We don’t have the luxury of big numbers so our practices are not set up to be physical. We have to be smart so we are not losing guys for game day.”

He knows recruiting will likely remain a challenge for Gallaudet and perseverance is part of the playbook.

JeVaughn "Jazz" Sargent came to Gallaudet from Stevenson, and is playing quarterback for the first time at the collegiate level. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

“Our recruiting pool is limited,” he said. “It really takes a lot of help from high school coaches and administrators across the country to identify those kids with hearing loss. You have to build on that number and then find as many of those mainstream kids that have hearing loss or hearing deaf and even those that are interested in deaf studies that have a high level of signing skills that would qualify to get in or may want to get into deaf education or become an interpreter.

“Then it’s all about recruiting. You’re trying to sell your program and your university and convince them to come to D.C. and be a part of something special.”

Quarterback JeVaughn Sargent, CODA and known to his teammates as Jazz, was among the players LeFors was able to recruit to Gallaudet. And he is the key to making the spread offense work. Sargent transferred from Stevenson University, where he played primarily defensive back. In Saturday’s victory, he threw for two touchdowns and ran for two others.

“We struggled in the first half but we picked it up and played our game like we were supposed to and finished with the W. Shoutout to my O-line who played an awesome game.”

Said LeFors: “He’s a good athlete, played both ways in high school. He’s a playmaker. The quarterback position is still relatively new to him at this level but with more reps and more experience he is going to improve.”

Gallaudet and LeFors gave Sargent the fresh start he was seeking.

“I wanted to come and try to build a new journey for myself and I feel like this was a perfect fit for me as CODA,” he said.

“I played QB my whole life. It was the first position I ever played. But being an athlete I also played DB while playing QB. But I knew where my passion was at. The coach at my previous school didn’t agree so I went somewhere that believed in me.”

Admission for hearing students is limited to eight percent, LeFors said. Students must meet a requirement for a certain level of signing. Sargent met that requirement.

Despite Gallaudet using the 5G helmet in 2023, LeFors has opted not to use it this year. The technology allowed the quarterback to receive plays on a digital display within the helmet. He then could use sign language to communicate the play in the huddle.

This season, Gallaudet is using the old-fashioned method for calling plays: They turn and face the coach, who signs the play.

“The helmet communication is a great concept,” LeFors said, “but it’s not super friendly with our offense and when you use a lot of verbiage. It ends up being time consuming. You have to look for the play on a tablet and relay it to the quarterback and then he has to relay it to the team in the huddle. For now, it’s more beneficial to just have the team look at me and I’ll call it.”

LeFors is only two games into what he hopes will be a long tenure with the Bison.

“It's an incredible story here,” he said. “A lot of these players don’t grasp that yet. But someday they will. For a long, long time this program has innovated. So there’s a lot of pride to make sure that we continue to do it the right way so that we make the whole deaf world proud of what we accomplish. At the end of the day that’s really what is most important.”

Glen Crevier spent 43 years in sports journalism as a reporter, columnist and sports editor.