To communicate “together” in American Sign Language (A.S.L.), you press your knuckles together and hold your hands close to your chest before circling them counterclockwise and bringing them to rest below your heart. Like many signs in A.S.L., it seems to convey several meanings at once: linkage, firmness, circularity. It was a sign in frequent use one day last September, in a hotel conference room outside Boston, where the Gallaudet University Bison, the country’s only college football team for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, was trying to figure out whether and how to protest during the national anthem. It had then been a year since Colin Kaepernick sat, and then took a knee, during the anthem to protest racial injustice in America.

Some of Gallaudet’s players had kneeled during games. Two weeks before, even, one of their players—a freshman—had yelled “Fuck the national anthem” into the sky at a home game. Since the anthem is silently signed at Gallaudet, his shout was audible to those of us who are hearing, including a visiting fan, who complained.

The following day was Gallaudet’s first away game since that incident, and the team’s head coach, Chuck Goldstein, wanted his players to think about their protest. “These situations help us come together,” he relayed in simultaneous communication, signing and speaking at the same time. “You can understand each person on the team, because each person is different. You’re from different places—different people have different struggles in life.” He encouraged his players to discuss why they protested and if they could find a way to protest “together.”

Gallaudet’s team is a mixture of black, white, Latino, and Asian players from all over the country, from big cities like Dallas and small towns in Oklahoma. And it is uniquely diverse in its players’ relationship to language and sound. Some players are fully deaf and communicate only in A.S.L.; some are hearing children of deaf adults; some use cochlear implants; some are hard-of-hearing but never signed before arriving on campus. They are a panorama of the deaf experience in America, and every year means a new effort at merging these diverse backgrounds and abilities into a competitive football team.

Gallaudet’s history with football and protest runs deep. In the early eighteen-nineties, the Gallaudet quarterback Paul Hubbard noticed that his opposition, another deaf school, was picking up his signs and play calls. He gathered his teammates in a circle behind the football to sign in secret and thereby invented the football huddle. The university is also home to one of the most politically conscious and active groups of students in the U.S.; as a deaf minority in a hearing world, they are well aware of rights and freedoms that many take for granted. The Deaf President Now campaign, in 1988, protesting the choice of a hearing head of school, is often credited with helping to spur the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the last great piece of civil-rights legislation that a once-functional Congress passed with bipartisan support.

There was a slight pause after Coach Goldstein, who is white, opened the floor to his players, everyone waiting to see who would stand first. Then Joell Dixon, a black senior, stood up. Dixon was mainstreamed at a public high school in Maryland, and, though hard-of-hearing, he had little exposure to deaf culture or language before Gallaudet recruited him to play football. Four years later, though he prefers to voice, Dixon could sign with ease, and he both signed and spoke to his teammates and coaches.

“I kneel before each game, since last year. I believe in equality, unity, love, and, as a black man in this country, maybe not all black men but most of us are not treated equally everywhere. And that’s why I want to kneel tomorrow, or we can stand and lock arms to show togetherness and equality,” he said.

Some of his teammates clapped in hearing applause and others waved their hands in the air in A.S.L. applause.

Shortly after Dixon addressed the team, two fully deaf players, both of them white, stood in succession. Neither could voice and both had been educated in secondary schools for the deaf, which are vital feeder schools to Gallaudet. They walked to the center of the conference room so everyone could see their sign and have it interpreted for those not fully fluent. As white men, they acknowledged that they could never fully understand what black men in this country went through on a daily basis, but they expressed their support and pledged to kneel with Dixon and others.

There was more applause, both of the hearing and A.S.L. kind, and a consensus seemed to be emerging.

Identity is a sensitive subject in the Bison locker room: each player feels a different sense of belonging at the international home of deaf culture. In the four seasons that I had been following them, they had gone a cumulative 4–27. The team suffered injuries to key players during that time, but players also struggled to communicate with players, coaches with players, coaches with each other. Players quit halfway through the season or were kicked off for disciplinary reasons. This happens at other schools, too, but Gallaudet only suits up between sixty-five and seventy players at the start of each season, compared with almost a hundred for most football programs. Each absence matters, and each departure leaves a deep tear in the experimental fabric that the Bison represent. In the course of four years, I had waited for a moment when I could see the Bison truly cohere, and, as I watched the thoughtful responses of these young men, I had the feeling that I was finally watching it happen.

The initial stages of the discussion had brought Gallaudet from a consensus of kneeling during the anthem to one where the team would stand, link arms, and face the flag. What struck me during this first phase was the balletic nature of the discussion. Players left their circular tables—the white clothes stained with tomato sauce from that night’s carb-loaded pasta dinner—and moved toward the center of the room, where their sign could be seen and interpreted, before returning to their seats. Amid the constant movement, there was patience. A beautiful thing about A.S.L. is that you really need to look at a person, engage with them, to understand and communicate.

Coach Goldstein checked back with the group. “With that, would anyone not feel comfortable standing? That means no one in the room takes a knee. We all stand together, same time together, locked together.”

The kicker, Jacob Guertler, who is white, stood. He was in the corner of the room, and he moved slightly forward so everyone could see him and hear Coach Shelby Bean interpret: “As a white person, I don’t really understand, but I understand where you guys are coming from. As for my family, my family is a strong military family, so I don’t want to disrespect my family, but I don’t want to disrespect you guys either. I just want to stand with my hand on my heart and look at the American flag.”

Another player, also white, echoed Guertler’s sentiment, prompting another round of discussions. Players signed and spoke about personal experiences with the police, related the experience of African-Americans to the struggle of deaf Americans, attempted to forge a way the entire Bison team could protest and stand “together.”

After thirty minutes or so, the matter was still unresolved. Coach Goldstein took his turn. “I appreciate you all sharing how you feel,” he signed and spoke. “That’s great. And this, believe it or not, this conversation we’re having right now is going to make us a better team. We’re not going to lock arms then. Each player, do what you feel you need to do, but again, make sure we’re still respecting each other.”

The next day, before their game against Mount Ida College, when the anthem played, all but four Bison players stood facing the flag as it waved in the face of a storm gathering over the horizon. Guertler was there, with his hand on his heart. Dixon stood behind him with his hand on Guertler’s shoulder pad.

The team played their first game of the 2018 season on September 1st, in Reading, Pennsylvania, against Alvernia University; the Bison lost 26–21. Neither team was on the field yet when the anthem played. For future games, the team’s policy remains that each player can do what he wants, so long as he is respectful of his teammates.