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Sports

Talk About Heart: Linebacker Rogers Savors Role on CIF-Bound Team

Senior says of his Helix teammates, heading into Division II playoffs as top seed: "I want them all to get rings, and I want to be part of that."

J.J. Rogers of Helix Charter High School likes to see the humor in things and loves to laugh.

So when an official working a junior varsity football game penalized J.J. for talking back after a play two years ago, J.J. had a good chuckle. The memory still makes him smile.

Rogers, after all, is deaf.

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The now-senior linebacker for the Highlanders communicates a mile a minute, but he does it through American Sign Language. As J.J. says now of that 2008 penalty: "It must have been the body language."

Said Jim Rogers, J.J.'s father: "I actually saw the whole thing. He got flagged for talking back and I thought, 'It's a Christmas miracle!'

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"The play was over, a flag went up in the air and J.J. just kind of looked at [the official] and gestured like, 'What are you doing?' When we saw J.J. later, he was laughing. He thought it was wonderful."

J.J. also gets a kick out of remembering how head coach Troy Starr once ripped into him in practice, telling him "You're fired!" after he'd made a mistake. Starr had learned to do it by signing.

"He signed it in my face," J.J. recalls through an interpreter. "At first it kind of made me feel bummed out, but then I saw the other kids—the same thing happens to the hearing kids. He tells them they're fired, too."

Return to Football

After taking a year off from football, Rogers, 16, is back in a helmet and pads.

The multisport athlete—he plays soccer (his best sport), pole-vaulted with the track team and was an outfielder on the JV baseball team—is a second-team linebacker on a 10-0 Helix squad seeded No. 1 in Division II going into the CIF San Diego section playoffs.

He's not one of the Highlanders' stars by any means—there are plenty of those—but he's a respected, well-liked part of the team. And with Helix often up by several touchdowns at halftime this season, Rogers has gotten quite a bit of playing time in the second half.

"He's as dedicated as any guy out here," says defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Sam Friend, who cites J.J.'s intelligence and toughness. "He's a hard worker. I wish he'd been playing here the whole time. He would have had a real good chance to get some serious play time."

J.J., too, wishes he hadn't walked away from football his junior year to focus more on other sports.

"I really hate that I did that," he says. "It was a big mistake."

He watched how well the team did and how much fun his friends had and wanted to be a part. So when January came, J.J. joined the team in offseason workouts and has been making strides ever since. 

Now, like every other Scotty, he's hoping this is the year Helix regains a section title.

"I want to get a ring," J.J. says. "This is a good team; these are great guys. They're like my family and I want them all to get rings, and I want to be part of that."

A 'Different Language'

To this day, Jim Rogers says doctors aren't certain why his son is deaf. There's no history of hearing impairment on either side of the family. It's likely, Jim Rogers says, that J.J. has been unable to hear since birth.

Jim and Karen Rogers noticed that as a baby, J.J. wouldn't respond to environmental noises. Jim remembers a day when a dog dish was knocked off a counter. It clanged onto the floor and startled everybody except J.J., even though it landed just behind him.  They used to make noise—even ringing bells—to try to get his attention, but nothing worked.

Finally, when it was determined J.J. was deaf, his parents decided they were going to jump into sign language immediately. If their son was going to do well, he needed a language to learn and communicate. As J.J. learned how to sign, so did Jim, Karen and J.J.'s older sister, Amber, now 19.

His first word was cat. His second word was candy. The words have been flying off his fingers ever since.

"He's always been a happy kid and extroverted," says Jim Rogers. "We joke that God made him so good, he had to do something [to slow him down]. Deaf people don't consider it a disability. It's just a different language [they use]."

J.J.—his given name is Jonathan—Rogers has been a good student at Helix, where sign language interpreters are made available in classrooms, after school and at games. Signing also is taught at Helix, like Spanish or French.

J.J.—who lives in Lakeside—chose Helix because of its programs for the deaf and its athletic opportunities.

He has a 3.5 GPA and an aptitude for math and the sciences. He has an opportunity for a scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, and has been offered a chance to play football at Gallaudet, a university for the deaf in Washington, D.C.

J.J. hopes to play soccer in college. He's also been invited onto the U.S. team in the Deaf Olympics in Athens in 2013. He hopes to play midfield his senior season at Helix, after playing in goal last season.

From his early years, J.J. found acceptance among other kids through athletics.

"It's been J.J.'s way to get into the hearing world," says his father. "You hit a home run or you make a tackle and it opens doors."

Jim Rogers sees what his son has done, never hesitating to take on a new challenge, never giving in to the fact he can't hear, and says, "He's taking off like a rocket ship."

He laughs, saying the world is even adapting to what's best for J.J.

"All these teenagers have their super phones," he says. "And who'd of thought all these hearing people would be texting? Everybody's texting. The world's coming to him. He doesn't miss a beat."

Getting His Chances

At 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, Rogers isn't imposing. But like most linebackers, he loves contact. Just getting into the games and getting a chance to hit somebody, he says, makes football worth all the work.

When asked for a season highlight, he says he's proud he was part of the second-team defense that maintained a shutout against Grossmont, stopping Helix's rival inside the red zone late in the game.

Jim Rogers has a more specific memory. It was late in a game this season when the opponent—he can't recall who—had driven to about the Helix 5 yard line.

"They ran right up the middle and the offensive line opened up a big hole and this big running back comes running up at full speed," says Jim Rogers. "J.J. just stuck him right at the line of scrimmage."

Playing defense really was J.J.'s only option. On offense, there are too many calls, audibles and adjustments that he can't hear. On defense, however, plays and alignments can be relayed from the sidelines with hand signals, and his teammates can point him in the right direction, too.

Teaching his teammates and coaches how to sign—even simple words and phrases—and seeing them embrace the language so they can communicate with him has been one of the best things about returning to football, J.J. says. Some teammates even have taken sign language classes.

So during a practice last week, that was J.J.–as usual—circulating among his teammates, exchanging signs, tugging on their jerseys and speaking through his interpreter. And, of course, laughing.

"He's a  funny kid," says Friend, the defensive coach. "He'll join in and make comments. He's always laughing.  But he's just one of the guys. He's just hearing-impaired and he communicates with his hands, but he's still like anybody else. He plays jokes, says funny stuff and teaches some of the coaches and other players sign language."

After missing last season, Rogers says this season has been especially meaningful.

"These guys are my brothers," he says. It's really awesome to be here. I'm going to miss it so much.  …  I just feel so lucky to have been a part of this program and playing on this team, this family."

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