and I usually am not that easily moved. Must be fatigue
Anyway, this article almost made me cry while reading it. Here are some extracts:
And to think there are some people who actually got mad because this happened. Come on, the kid thinks he won the game!! He doesn’t know that he was allowed to score a touchdown by the opposing team. And as far as I can tell from the article, everyone that was actually involved feels great about this.
Anyway, I’m going off to the batroom now to see if I can control those sniffles. Damn cold. And it’s mighty dusty here in this cubicle. I think I got something in my eye.
I work with disabled kids… Little victories like that mean to the world to them, to their parents, and to us. What a GREAT lesson for the highschool crowd…
Dewitt sounds like a most wonderful man. We need more peole like him in the world.
Actually, I can see your point, but if you look at the articles here, which are from the home-town paper, they never mention the young man thinking he won the game.
So, maybe Rick Reilly was coughembellishingcough the facts a little. It’s not something that would surprise me in his case. Even if the touchdown was a gift, I think it would be hard to find someone more deserving of that gift. Too bad, he didn’t whip out a sharpie, sign the ball, and hand it to his agent, huh?
Yeah, but here in the low lands almost any point is within spitting distance of any other point.
And I’m not bashing Europeans in general (heck, I’m native European), it’s just that quite a few of my colleagues remind me of Dieter from Sprockets. Black turtlenecks and Doc Martens indeed
I’m gonna be a surprising voice of dissent here. I personally would’ve felt cheated if this had happened to me. I’m not big on pity, and this reeks of it. Reminds me of that UConn girl who was allowed to score a hoop to set the school scoring record a few years back.
Have to go with erictelevision on that, yes I got choked up reading it, but that does not negate the patronizing “retards are there to inspire us” type thinking this engenders. I personally have only occasional contact with people who have mental disabilities, but I know people who work with people who have mental disabilities. About a year ago I attended a “retirement” party for one of these people. It was held at one of those Hotel meeting/seminar rooms, about 300 people were there. Some of the “inspirational people” gave speaches about this woman’s affect on them. None of them talked about how she had let them “win” like they were children to be coddled. They talked about how before they had met her they thought that they were helpless, had to be taken care of by others. She helped them realize, that despite the challenges they faced, they should take on as much as they could, it was OK to try and fail, that when you tried, you earned RESPECT, not false cheers for being “allowed” to score a touchdown. Some of the people were in assisted living situations, and could easily take the “I can’t do anything for myself” tack. If i were in their situations I might do that. I see people’s reaction to this as one of “that makes me feel like a good person to root for this guy”. And yet most of these people wouldn’t spend 2 seconds getting to know someone outside of their peer group. much less someone who has any kind of disabilites. It is the same kind of self indulgent BS that makes movies like “The Other Sister” popular. I always think, how do you like it when people who are smarter than you throw you a bone? Sorry to go off there, sort of a sore point with me.
I saw the kid on TV, and at first I thought he actually had legitimately made the touchdown. Then, when I learned it was a set-up . . . Jeez, the kid is not that disabled! He’s fully cognizant enough to eventually realize how patronizing the whole deal is. “Awww, we let our pet retard score a fake touchdown, because he’s not capable of accomplishing anything on his own for real.” Bite me—why not let the kid work to achieve real goals he can be legitimately proud of?
