MIAMISBURG, Ohio (WKRC) – An eighth-grade football team came together to help their team manager have a moment he’ll never forget.
Paul Townsend of Miamisburg was born with spina bifida. Doctors gave him just a 2% chance of living until his first birthday, but Townsend is now 15.
He’s a huge football fan but can’t play, so he’s the team’s manager, but with the help of his teammates, Townsend scored his first touchdown Wednesday night.
ht/ sns
When I first see stories like this my first reaction is usually to question why are they doing this. Then I’ll watch the video and realize the poor guy is just a kid that never has been able to play a game like that. Then they interview him after the event and it’s clear he enjoyed the heck out of having his friends and team mates (and don’t forget the other team) help him to have a great experience. Good for everyone involved.
Big WOW and thank you to all involved!!!
…this is what we WISH professional football players were. This kid just loves the game. Period. And wants to be near it FOR love the game any way he can.
…and his team mates get blessed by him in more ways than ONE. He’s a spark plug for them and takes care of issues that others don’t want to address, so there’s two, but the BIG one is that they can SEE, very graphically, just how blessed they ARE to have big, strong bodies that are durable enough to play football with and still date cheerleaders after the game.
This is a constant reminder that not everyone GETS that. Not just doesn’t get a good body, but sometimes doesn’t even get a fully FUNCTIONAL body.
A strong body is easy to take for granted, especially with athletes, who tend to associate with OTHER people of similar physique, so it’s not even really on the radar for them how lucky they are to be healthy. There’s a LOT of folks out there who AREN’T. Yeah, there’s the pencil-neck geeks the jocks look down on, the skinny armed and rubbery legged that comprise most of the student body in high school, or the fat and slow kids, and the jocks can look down on them and think (not always correctly), that “Well, THEY could be as strong as ME if they worked out in the weight room like I did, ran around the track every day like I did, performed crunches and pushups like I did, so they’re just being lazy and soft”.
A kid like THIS puts the lie to that, and puts their physical gifts into sharp perspective.
Mr. Townsend didn’t ask to be born as he was. Mr. Townsend, according to medical professionals, shouldn’t be with us at ALL. There is no workout routine, no carb-cutting, no number of laps around the track or motivational speeches that will EVER allow him to be, not only a football player, but even just an ordinary kid who can freely walk down the street on a summer’s day. It would be easy to rail, to curse God, to hide yourself away, and not interact with “Normal” kids, let alone with star athletes your age.
Easy to get bitter about why SOME kids get perfect bodies, and YOU get spina bifida.
But Mr. Townsend didn’t fall into that trap.
Not only did he NOT hold a one-man pity party, he…well, first, he LIVED, which ITSELF was an achievement few of us truly appreciate, but sought out the company of people who WERE blessed, who WERE active, who WERE functioning physically on a level HE could only DREAM about…and work hard to make THEM better!
…and, these are the REAL blessing his teammates got from him.
Humanity.
Compassion.
Empathy.
Community.
The fact that they worked together to give him a touchdown, to devise this and make it happen, shows that THESE young men, quite OPPOSITE of the kneelers and whiners that we’ve become accustomed to, instead of looking down on this physically weak specimen, rejecting him, and shunning him, were taken with the strength he showed of SPIRIT, not of body, and were able to recognize his worth as a person, and his worth to THEM, that was not measured in carrys and downs, but in heart and inspiration.
No, this touchdown didn’t mean anything to the team stats. It didn’t win the big game, launch them into a national championship, or get anyone a full-ride college scholarship.
But it DID make them ALL better people.
And it DID make a VERY important stat for ONE young man, who never thought he’d could EVER be on the field, let alone score in a game.
And God bless them all for this.
…can you imagine the sport that professional football COULD be with this kind of heart? If the players didn’t look endlessly to their petty grievances, imagined hurts, and social justice constructs, but just loved the game and wanted to play any way they could, as hard as they could for as long as they could?
You’d never get ME out of the stadium, THAT’s for sure, even if the team were ALL in wheelchairs…
That’s so sweet.
I LOVED how the other team pretended to tackle him.
I try to daily thank God for a healthy body. Turning on a faucet alone is a complex operation. SO MANY moving and unseen parts involved. Think about it and be thankful that you can. 🌞
…my own child was born with some issues that required him to have 3 surgeries in his first year, and several others over the next 17. This required me and Mrs. Lady Shade to be around children’s hospital a lot, overnight in many cases, sometimes several nights.
Five minutes in a children’s hospital can REALLY teach you something about blessings.
And I got a LOT more than five minutes.
…There’s an old saying, something like, “I used to curse that I had no shoes, until I met a man that had no feet”. You’ll get that, in SPADES, in a children’s hospital.
My child was born cleft.
We did all the things we were supposed to do. The wife quit smoking, took prenatal vitamins, spent LOTS of time at the obstetricians, we got all the tests, ultrasounds, etc., and by all indications we would have a VERY healthy baby because he was growing fast and strong.
I was quite surprised, then, when he took his first breath in this world through an incomplete face.
My wife was quite out of it at the time, since the delivery had been in progress for many hours and they had to use drugs and forceps and damn near went Cesarean, but I was completely taken aback. How could I have a child that was less than perfect? What kind of a beast was the God that would DO that? To ME? How was I supposed to deal with this? How could I get OUT of this?!?
…Notice the perpendicular pronoun?
It was all about ME. Not the wife, not my child, ME. What a pity party I threw!
…Then, out in the smoking area (hospitals still had them then), completely abandoning my husbandly and new fatherly duties to my mother and mother-in-law, smoking cigarette after cigarette, I met another man.
Who’s child didn’t have a functioning heart. While MY baby was a ruddy red and strong as an ox.
…we were jointed by another man.
Who’s child was born prematurely, with his lungs stuck together, and needed constant care. While MY baby was almost 10 pounds and cried lustily as I left.
…Then a woman came along.
who had had a neonate in the hospital for some weeks, that was blind, among other things. While MY baby seemed to have stared accusingly at me (probably not, they don’t have great eye control then) through clear, operable eyes on both sides while I shirked my duties towards him.
…and all THESE folks, while as shell-shocked as I, were focused on their CHILDREN.
…you really, REALLY learn something about humility in a children’s hospital. About how bad it could be. About how YOUR troubles are NOTHING compared to OTHERS.
…about where your TRUE duty lies.
…Having been suitably put in my place by a clever, subtle Lord that I didn’t even know at that time, I slunk off to the hospital gift shop and bought my child a first toy.
A Curious George. It was a favorite of mine as a child, and I wanted my new son to have one.
As I did.
And I went back to the room because my son deserved to have a loving father.
As I did.
Every time he went to the hospital after that, it was with BOTH of those things.
He SILL has BOTH of those things. And will until I lay my trophies down.
And then I will love him from Heaven. And thank God for him PERSONALLY.
..He’s had many challenges, not only with this, but with disk issues in his back that manifested in his seventh year that robbed him of being able to play his senior year on his HS baseball team where he had lettered and later graduated, but he’s grown up to be a strong young man that has learned quickly and well, has an artistic bent that I never had, and is someone I would be proud to KNOW, let alone be a FATHER of. It was MY job to make HIM better, but HE made ME better.
What a blessing my curse turned out to be!
And to God be the glory, I certainly didn’t deserve it…
He, like Mr. Townsend, did not let his problems darken his heart. His problems were not on that level, true, but you could see where, when he couldn’t do things he would love to do that his friends did, he could EASILY have turned negative, even suicidal, as many of these children do, but he was blessed with a strong spirit, a great extended family, and some good friends.
As Mr. Townsend was.
I had run squad a long time before he was born. I saw a LOT of damaged kids.
But it wasn’t personal.
I never APPRECIATED it until I had one of my OWN.
You parents out there, look at your children tonight, whatever age they may be, whatever health they may be, whatever their challenges are, and think on the young man in this story, and realize how blessed YOU are, how blessed your CHILDREN are, and how a dauntless spirit can overcome whatever we may consider a shortcoming.
Your child is precious. Love them, pray for them, and make SURE they know that they can overcome ANYTHING.
As Mr. Townsend did…
@Supernightshade
The Lord knew you were strong of heart and could handle this and handled it well you did.😉
Bless you and family.
That touchdown meant the world to that boy! Thanks to all who made it happen.
Those young players will carry this
act of kindness in their heart for the rest
of their lives.THERE ARE PLENTY OF GREAT AMERICANS
out there !!!