Let me be
honest. I usually don’t read news articles. Maybe just a little in Japanese but
I wouldn’t click the sport section. It’s because I’m not really a sports
person. I heard that it’s an American football season in the public mind,
however, I don’t know what is going on since I don’t know the rule of American
football. But when I was given this assignment, one article caught my eyes and
heart. The article is “Rival football teams work
together for a touching touchdown” on kake.com.
Here is what this article about.
Canton Middle School and Waynesville Middle School are the precursor for
Pisgah and Tuscola, one of the area's biggest football rivalries. Canton hosted
Waynesville on September 22nd, and there was one of the audiences, Lou Stamey.
He is a student at Canton Middle School, and was born with quadriplegic
cerebral palsy, which means the condition affects his whole body. He’s
wheelchair-bound, and can hardly speak. His father has passes away, but before
he died, he passed on a love for football. On the game day, a miracle happened.
Canton coach drew up a play for this game, and Waynesville didn’t even stop,
yet cooperated with them. The quarterback took the snap and handed off to Lou,
and his classmate Brayden West pushed Lou from the 50-yard line. Everyone was
screaming his name, and his mom was giving a shout. Lou made defenders fall and
reached the end zone. Then both teams surrounded him to chant his name. Lou
can’t say anything but he got a big smile on his face.
This represents the humanity that
we all should have in both sports and everyday life. In sports game, all the
players want is win. However, the players in that game, assigned the highest
priority to let Lou play as a part of team, and showed him that he can do
anything he wants to.
This news reminded me of the days when I was practicing
classical ballet so hard when I was in middle school. My ballet teacher was very
strict about being polite and respectful. She taught me that even if I could
dance well, if I wasn’t polite and rude to people, I wouldn’t be able to be a
great dancer in the true sense of the term. One time I had to dance with people
who were around fifty years old and started dancing five years ago. When you
dance ballet with people, it becomes a team work. We have to make the timing
right and synchronize our moves. I started dancing at age of five, so obviously
I could dance better than them at that time. I had to teach them the
choreography and never forgot to be polite and respectful even if they couldn’t
pick up the choreography. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking of being
respectful at that time, however, at a later date, I heard from the teacher that
the people felt so happy because I was polite, and she was proud of me. As of
this moment, I don’t dance anymore. But I know that what she taught me has been
affecting the way I interact with people even now.
I believe that playing sports is
not always about being “strong” and win. Sport is something that makes us grow
and teaches us how to show our humanity and dignity. I have so much respect to
the coach who planned this whole thing, however, I have even more respect to
the players of the other team. They don’t even know Lou but no one stopped, and
yet cooperated fully with them. Even though the point wasn’t counted, it sure
has become the special moment that he would never forget. They taught us that
sometimes there is more important thing than win. It’s compassion. Also this
showed us that sport can give people hope and happiness. I hope we can witness
like this moment more through sport.
