The trash talk has been building inside the Aguirre household for six months.

By this point, a day before Dickinson hosts Clear Springs in a District 24-6A showdown, you’d need a dump truck to clear it all out. Brothers Lorenzo and Mariano Aguirre’s sibling rivalry is magnified by the fact that, for this week, they’re actual rivals. Lorenzo, a junior, is Dickinson’s quarterback, while Mariano, a sophomore, is Clear Springs’ center.

“I’ve been hearing about this game since the schedule came out,” the boys’ mother, Mary, said.

While Lorenzo would never admit it to him on a week like this, he looks up to his younger brother. They may play on different teams, but Mariano is constantly with him on the field. Friday night, he’ll just be physically there, too.  

“Sometimes I’ll take things for granted at practice, but then I realize what he has to go through,” Lorenzo said. “It reminds me that other people can have it worse. He worked his butt off for everything he has.” 

The Aguirre family lives in Dickinson’s school zone. Mariano, however, attends Clear Springs High School because it is the host site of the Galveston-Brazoria Cooperative for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the program that all deaf students in Galveston County attend. 

Mary doesn’t care which team wins. Mariano getting to live out his dream as a varsity football player is the victory that matters. The day he was born was one of the happiest and saddest days of her life. Moments after the jubilation of having her third son came the news that her baby boy was deaf in one ear. 

“I was devastated,” Mary said. “I didn’t think he was going to do much of anything.”

What Mary soon found out, however, was that whatever her son lacked in hearing, he made up for in heart. Mariano didn’t allow his family to use sign language with him growing up, and he still talks today instead of signing. His entire life has been a fight to be like his friends, to be normal. 

He played little league baseball with a hearing aid, but the sport he wanted most was the one he couldn’t play: football. His oldest brother, Julian, was a quarterback at Dickinson, and Lorenzo has followed in his footsteps since he was a six-year-old peewee player. Mariano would snap the ball for Lorenzo and Julian as they alternated taking snaps in the front yard, but that was the extent of his experience until middle school. Mary was hesitant to let him put the pads on. Playing football in the yard with family was one thing, but playing with coaches he might not understand, and, worse, might not understand him, scared her. 

But Clear Creek ISD’s Deaf Co-Op had the support to put her mind at ease. Mariano played middle school football with the help of an interpreter. At the beginning of freshman year, he began working with Jennifer Hauert, an interpreter contracted by the district.

Hauert is a former collegiate basketball player who has coached CrossFiit, softball, baseball and boys’ and girls’ basketball at different points in her education career. Clear Springs has had six deaf football players since the early 2010s. Hauert has become the go-to interpreter because her coaching background allows her to handle the heat - both from the weather during August two-a-days and from the intensity of a Friday night game.  

Clear Springs coach Anthony Renfro and his staff knew Mariano was a special athlete in middle school, but they witnessed how intelligent he was on the freshman football team. Hauert says Mariano is the first student she’s interpreted for who knew the entire playbook before they even met. Mariano played in the  JV season opener before the coaches realized that he was the best center in the program. 

Clear Springs has had deaf players before, but it’s never had a deaf starter. So Renfro crafted a system that allowed Mariano to control the snap of the ball. The coach calls the play and the tempo they want the ball snapped, which Hauert then signals from the sideline to Mariano. A quick tempo call means Mariano must snap the ball as soon as the quarterback claps his hands. A normal tempo means Mariano can wait until he wants to snap it, and every player looks at him for the cue. 

Being the center of attention on a Class 6A Texas team is daunting for any sophomore, much less the first deaf starter in program history. But Mariano has been a linchpin for an offense that’s scored 42.5 points per game with a 3-1 record in district play. 

“A lot of deaf people wouldn’t be confident or be scared to hit,” Mariano said. “But you just have to go out there and do your job.”

And Mariano can only do his job thanks to the job Hauert does. She wants people to know her position is a growing need, offering a way for those who love sign language and sports to merge their two passions.

“I’ve been asked before if I’d be willing to give a workshop on interpreting in the sports field,” Hauert said. “I always thought there wasn’t enough interest in it. So I do want to share to upcoming interpreters what your job and profession can entail.”

Clear Springs is shouting about this story so the next kid like Mariano listens to his message instead of the doubters’.

“Hopefully, he can inspire kids to not be afraid to try something that everyone is telling them they can’t do,” Renfro said.

Mariano has inspired his brother, Lorenzo. Sure, they’re playing against each other on Friday, but they worked together for this moment. 

“I saw all the times he was working at nighttime,” Lorenzo said. “He had a great offseason. He’d snap me the ball and we’d go over their plays so I could help him out.” 

But one thing’s for sure - all that help game planning has ceased this week. 

“We have to make sure his brother isn’t logging into his HUDL or anything like that,” Renfro said.