Middle School Football Team Goes Behind Everyone's Back to Do the Most Decent Thing Ever Done

NY Daily News - The Olivet Eagles football team at Olivet Middle School in Olivet, Michigan, decided to run a play and intentionally not score, all without their coaches knowing. The football team planned the play for weeks, all so they could set up a very special moment for a special boy. Keith Orr is a special needs child, and his buddies on the football team decided to give him the chance to run for a touchdown. Sheridan Hedrick, a player on the team, would’ve easily scored a touchdown, but he instead took a knee on the 1-yard line, much to the dismay of the crowd. That was until the next play happened: the “Keith Special.” The ball was hiked and immediately handed to Keith, who ran forward as his teammates protected him from the oncoming defense. Keith scored without a scratch. The boys did much more than help Keith score a touchdown; they brought a community together. “Yes I’m excited and happy that he made a touchdown, but what have these boys showed this community? That’s what gets to me,” said Keith’s mother, Carrie Orr, to WILX. “They’ve got his back. And he knows it.”

I might lose my Old Man cred for what I’m about to say. I’ll probably get my AARP card cancelled and say goodbye forever to the Early Bird special at the Waffle House, but I’ve got to let it fly, consequences be damned. Kids are simply better human beings now than they’ve ever been. I know I’m not supposed to think that. It goes against Nature. I’m supposed to go through life convinced that humanity peaked when I was a kid and the second I graduated the schools all turned into Sodom & Gomorrah with $200 Air Jordans and iPhones. But I can’t. Because there’s no way in hell the guys on our football team in Weymouth would ever have gone so far out of their way to something this incredibly decent for a Keith Orr. I mean, we had Downs Syndrome kids in our school, and while we were exactly giving them the Richie Incognito treatment, we weren’t nice either. Unless you consider ignoring them, then being shitheads behind their backs “nice.” For sure we weren’t concocting elaborate plots behind our coaches backs to bring some joy into the life of a kid like Keith Orr to make up for the bad hand he was dealt. We would’ve thought we deserved the Nobel Peace Prize if he didn’t end up hanging from a hook by his wedgie. So sure, today’s middle schoolers might be academically dumber than we were, maybe they spend 8 hours a day on XBox (as opposed to my 4 hours a day on Atari) and have porn options we could only dream of. But somehow, on the whole, they’re much better people than I ever was.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get this dust out of my eyes… @JerryThornton1