Senior night: Buba Gannes holds a 10 x 12 picture in his left hand and peers in through the double doors of Frank Sladek Gym.
Moments earlier, he dribbled down the basketball court, looking to pass to a teammate in the final game of ASDB’s season.
Instead of the ball, he now grips the headshot. In it, he is smiling at the camera, his white V-necked jersey displaying ARIZONA in royal blue. A No. 5 is below.
Midway through the final game of the season, the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind boys basketball team trailed visiting San Simon 37-15.
It was senior night. Instead of the usual 10 or so fans, about 50 dotted the bleachers. The double-header girls and boys games were livestreamed to families around the state via two tablets horizontally placed on tripods in the stands.
ASDB’s two seniors were honored that Feb. 4 night — with goodie buckets, applause and well-wishes. Their coaches addressed the fans.
“Zephaniah has grown up here, more or less since he was a baby,” boys coach Eddie Gurley told the crowd in American Sign Language.
“He had the most growth in his senior year and was contributing in the most ways,” Gurley signed as an interpreter spoke loudly.
Senior Zephaniah Little smiled. He looked down at the hardwood. His brother Zamian, who also plays forward, shook his head from side to side when asked if he wanted to say something.
“Have a wonderful journey in your life and always know we will be here for you at ASDB,” Gurley went on.
Zephaniah smiled. Zamian, a sophomore, shrugged his shoulders. The team of six players assembled for a photo with coaches.
“Anything that you need help with, no matter what it is, we are here for you,” the coach said to Zephaniah and the crowd.
But the school and dorms that have been the Little brothers’ home since they were 5, will close in three months. And the basketball team that connected them to friends and the outside world will no longer exist in the same way, if at all.
The Littles, both of whom are deaf, are from Whiteriver on Fort Apache Indian Reservation — about 200 miles from Tucson. They are two of the three boys basketball players living in ASDB dorms. Of the 13 players combined on the girls and boys basketball teams — seven live on campus.
ASDB has 114 students. It was built for about 400 learners from across Arizona and early on about one-third of those lived on campus. Ten original dormitory buildings were constructed to each hold around 15 students and some residential staff assistants — grown ups who are surrogate parents — preparing meals, walking students to classroom doors, hugs in the night, administering medication and communicating with parents and teachers.
“It’s providing as close as possible a home-like atmosphere,” one former residential staff assistant said. “It’s all the after-hours care: homework help, field trips, arts and crafts, cooking or baking, chores in the dorm, and daily living skills instruction.”
If schools are the heart of a community, then for more than 100 years ASDB has been an anchor for its students, almost all of whom are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or visually impaired. Many have more complicated disabilities.
The school’s Governing Board voted earlier this month to shutter the 56-acre campus on West Speedway by next school year. Lack of federal and state funds, declining birth rates resulting in lower enrollment, more complicated student needs, and deteriorating buildings and infrastructure are causing the closure, ASDB Superintendent Annette Reichman said. The school will also lay off 60 employees here.
The move separates deaf and blind students: Those who are hard of hearing and deaf will move to the Copper Creek Elementary School campus in Oro Valley, 15 miles and 30 minutes away.
Students who are blind, have visual impairments, and those with more complex disabilities — along with students currently in dorms — must find a different school, ASDB administrators say. Students will likely return to their homes across the state and attend a local school, ideally with some disability services.
But the care, therapy, and immersive instruction along with learning and playing sports with their peers is not possible at their home school, families say. Almost all neighborhood schools do not have what these students need to thrive.
Now, families ask: How does a high school basketball program survive when it requires at least five players and the majority of those players are currently boarding students who will be sent home to other parts of the state?
“Our athletic program is a critical part of ASDB and provides incredible opportunities for our students to demonstrate their outstanding abilities,” ASDB spokeswoman Tricia Beckham told Arizona Luminaria. “We will continue offering athletic programs for our Tucson students next year at Copper Creek.”
“The extent of those programs will depend on our enrollment and student interest level,” she said. “We cannot predict what programs we will offer but hope athletics will continue to be a strong pillar of our school.”
Sophomore guard Isabella Vega pulls up for a 7-foot jumper. The ball hops off the rim and falls in. As it leaves the net, Isabella glances to her left and adjusts her glasses.
Her eyes search for her mom, Toni, in the stands.
The field goal is Isabella’s lone basket on senior night, when visiting San Simon beat the Sentinels 45-23.
“For our whole team, we just have to have patience with each other and just get through all of our losses and don’t give up,” Isabella says through an ASL interpreter. “I’d like to have a championship of course for our team but, you know, we want to try.”
When fall sports make way for winter sports like basketball, the work in the gym includes sweating for hours after each school day, shooting baskets on the weekends and multiple tournament games.
High school basketball thrives in January — especially for the Sentinels. Because in January, the girls and boys teams travel for the Western States Basketball Classic — a round-robin tourney featuring schools from five western states.
For the ASDB teams, the tournament is the apex of their season.
In Vancouver, Wash., last month, players tested their independence: Staying in the home-team dorms, some were up late, then played hard. They navigated air travel on the 2,000-mile round trip.
But the best part?
Hanging out with other teams, the players say.
“It was really fun. I met a lot of other deaf people. It was all my friends, all the other teams,” said Isabella, a Tucsonan who also plays volleyball.
“The competition was really good,” she said. “We lost, but we tried our best. I feel like we really wanted to win.”
The ASDB girls and boys finished the tourney each with a 3-2 record over three days of games, which included competition from the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind, Oregon school for the Deaf, Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind and Washington Schools for the Deaf.
Communing with other teams in the rain and visiting Portland, Ore., across the Columbia River, was a respite from questions facing the teams when they returned home to Tucson:
Is this their final tourney?
Will there be a team next year?
“It was good to get away. These kids, they’ve got a lot of heavy stuff on their hands,” said Guillermo Atondo, parent of Jonathan, a junior forward from Tucson. “Some of these boys and girls don’t know where they’re going to live.
“And what are they going to do? They’re not going to be able to play sports at a ‘normal’ school,” he said. “The ‘normal’ school is not going to give them the facilities that this school gives. And the opportunities. And their interpreters, their guidance and chaperones — they’re not going to have that. And that’s what’s upsetting.
“Because of the sports program, these kids shine. They go out, they learn how to not be afraid. They learn how to be self-sufficient,” he said. “When they travel, they know that they’ve got to pack, they’ve got to wake up early, it’s discipline.”
What sports teaches us — at every level — is universal: Discipline, socialization, teamwork, resilience.
It marks us for life.
The 2026 Sentinels are no different.
“This is their culture,” Atondo said. “This is their life, this is their family.”
A basketball season builds bonds and expands a players’ reality beyond the gym, school and home.
“Not only do they compete, but they’re able to see different cultures and experience different places and meet other deaf people,” said Isabella’s mom, Toni.
“And those are all super-valuable experiences because the Tucson deaf community is small. But nationally? It’s not. There’s so many people.”
When any player — hearing or not — takes to the hardwood, it is an equalizer. Every team — at an away tournament or within ASDB’s Class 1A, the smallest division — desires one thing:
“We want to have a championship poster in our gym,” Isabella said.
Five feet to his right, ASDB girls basketball coach Bryan Newton, Jr. is flanked on the sidelines by an ASL interpreter. To his left is the bench.
With outstretched arms, then signing furiously, Newton implores his players to work as a team: Come TO the ball, defend.
When he wants a time out, the interpreter shouts it to the court, giving the officials the audible version of Newton’s request.
The Sentinels trail 40-21 with 90 seconds left on senior night — the last game of the season, possibly ever.
“They’re disappointed with tonight,” Newton says after the loss. “But they got together and said ‘We’re going to do better next year. We’re going to communicate.’”
Nearly 20 blue and white championship banners dot the ASDB gym walls. Two include Western States Basketball Classic titles from 2018.
Outside the gym, the trophy case shines with the 1976 state football championship cup.
Retired ASDB teacher David Funkes, 67, recalled that championship season. He’s organizing a 50-year reunion with his teammates.
“But with all of these changes, it will be difficult,” Funkes said through an ASL interpreter. “We wanted to do the reunion at the old campus.”
The facility on West Speedway Boulevard opened in 1922. But ASDB is the same age as the Grand Canyon State — both became official in 1912. The school had sports teams even then, making it one of the oldest in the state with a continuous athletics program.
It offers four high school sports that compete in the Arizona Interscholastic Association with schools from around the state: volleyball, basketball, cross country and track and field. Recreationally, ASDB offers nine other sports, including adaptive swimming, bowling, climbing and goalball.
Medals, trophies and posters commemorating state champion wrestlers, runners and team track and field titles fill the gym walls and cases in the school hallway.
That athletics tradition is imperative, said Newton, 37, the girls basketball and cross country coach, who attended ASDB starting at age 9.
“Sports here helped me develop my confidence,” he said via an interpreter. “Before I came here, I was at another school and I was afraid to speak up. I didn’t know much sign language. I thought my opinions were wrong.
“At first I was a little bit shy, but I can be physical and I can be ‘one of the boys’ kind of thing,” he said. “In basketball, I couldn’t shoot, but then I had to develop my confidence for that and realize I can do it too.”
Funkes found that same poise through his years on the football, and basketball teams of the 1970s.
“Bottom line, my self-confidence thrived when I was involved in all of that,” he said. “Being aware of others, being aware of my peers, knowing that commonality and having those peer role models and adult role models — deaf adults — that showed me ‘Oh I could be that.’”
Which he needed, Funkes said, because he did not have it at home.
“My parents and I weren’t signing at home. They wouldn’t allow me to use it at home for the first couple of years while I was at ASDB,” said Funkes, who taught science at ASDB for 25 years.
After his parents saw him signing with some teachers, they started to sign a bit — think shorthand — at home.
“It was ‘home sign.’ So, not actual language, but like (signing for) birthday — imitating, gesturing, blowing out the candles,” he said.
His mom registered his sisters for ASL classes at ASDB and eventually the family effectively communicated at home.
“But I wish we had done it earlier, when I was born,” Funkes said. “I am a product of language deprivation.”
With 50 seconds left, Buba grabs a rebound and drives down the right side of the court, his speed beats two defenders to his left.
The layup hits the rim with no return. San Simon’s rebound sends the ball to the other end.
Buba moves back on defense, the Sentinels trail 56-30. Another rebound and back into the lane, Buba finds teammate Brennan Green with the long pass.
Ten seconds, now four, then one, buzzer.
Jonathan takes an open three for fun, bouncing in his hot-pink high tops. The ball kisses the bottom of the net. The Sentinels move to the bench, line up behind Zephaniah to high-five the Cougars team.
Buba goes low with his left hand, slapping palms. With his right, he pats the shoulder of each opposing player.
Sports are a lifeline. Sometimes it’s the only thing getting us to school or through class. It’s an outlet — for our anxious selves, for anger, for dealing with life.
It’s a universal language no matter where you’re from or how you converse. It is the place where we put down the things that don’t make sense and pick up a ball.
For Buba (boo-bah), playing basketball and running was how he communicated — his language before he knew ASL.
More than 6,000 miles from his native Gambia, West Africa — Buba, now a sophomore, began at ASDB only a few years ago.
His parents met him as a little guy when they were in the Peace Corps.
“He’d leave for school in the morning and he’d come home at night and no one really checked on him in the meantime,” his dad, Justin Jewett said. “And there were a lot of challenges with that. He came to us a very different kid than what we remembered.”
Buba, who is hard of hearing, was adopted by the Jewetts and lives on the northwest side with three younger siblings.
“He was basically a street kid for 10 years that had some security blankets,” Justin said. “It’s a huge change. And he went down the wrong path pretty quick because he wasn’t used to structure. And he’s not a bad kid.
“He just didn’t understand his new life. It was a lot,” said his dad. “It was a lot for everybody.”
Buba once ran 5 miles to a friend’s house across Tucson — because he could — and did not tell any one where he was going.
Doing back flips off the diving board on family vacation in Wisconsin, Buba put on a show.
Who knew he could do that?
But Justin, a P.E. teacher and basketball coach at Flowing Wells Junior High, saw an opening.
“Through sports, Buba has gotten himself on track,” he said. “It’s an area where he somewhat excels and he’s only a sophomore. He could do a lot.”
The immersion in sports — cross country, basketball and track — revealed a more focused, involved kid who is eager to move. And live. Sports keep him in school, Justin says.
“It’s hard to play for a coach that doesn’t speak ASL,” he said. “They can’t really coach you.”
The family is considering Model Secondary School for the Deaf for Buba in Washington D.C., where he would be a boarding student, Jewett said. He’s not sure if a mainstream school or club team could give Buba or his teammates what they need: experience and playing time.
“For Buba, the question of whether athletics will exist at ASDB is urgent, he said.
“We’re in a real happy place right now. And he needs what he’s getting.”
Senior night ends with San Simon’s 56-30 victory over the boys team.
The defeat is less pronounced than questions about the future.
Chairs roll off the court. The scorers’ table follows.
Buba and his dad, Justin, are among the last to leave the gym.
“Let’s go,” Justin tells his son as the gym lights dim.
“Are we going to play again?” Buba asks.
They amble down the bright hallway. Buba holds his team picture with both hands.
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