The American football huddle was invented by Paul Hubbard, a deaf player at Gallaudet University, to avoid the other team see his signs.
Gallaudet University is the world's premiere liberal arts university for the deaf and the hearing-impaired. Its all-deaf players football team was disbanded in 1994 for "lack of interest." The Gallaudet Bisons hadn't won more than three games a season since 1930. (Source)
Go Bisons!
This is still awkward. A better way to write this would be:
"The American football huddle was invented by Paul Hubbard, a player at the all-deaf Gallaudet University, to keep the other team from seeing his signs."
Anyway, I've just visited a deaf website where the writing ability sucked. This is because they learn ASL, sign language, rather than English grammar, so many deaf people are functionally illiterate when it comes to reading. That's sad. Reading is my whole life...if I couldn't hear, it would become only more so.
English is a second language to most Deaf people. Online, they communicate mostly through video blogs, since they can see each other.
Are all written and spoken languages the same? No. Every country has it's own sign language just the same as the spoken language. How could there possibly be a universal sign language? (Is there a universal spoken language?) It's about as ridiculous as expecting a sign language interepreter to read Braille! (which happens quite often!)
The Deaf write in ASL GLOSS, not English. They should be able to learn first in their first language, ASL before being forced to learn English, which is their second language. Those who are functionally illiterate have parents who did not instill education in them as a very young child when language learning was very important.
One other note: It's much easier for a hearing person to learn ASL than it is for a deaf person to learn to speak!