Posted on 09/27/2010 9:46:43 PM PDT by Abin Sur
Ike Ditzenberger is like a lot of other 17-year-old American football players. He dreams of playing college football. He attends daily practices. Most of the time he toils away in offensive drills. Then, on rare occasions, Ditzenberger runs into the limelight with aplomb. The description could fit thousands of American teenagers, except for one crucial detail: Ike Ditzenberger has Down Syndrome.
Ditzenberger, a junior at Snohomish (Wash.) High School, achieved a major milestone on Friday in a game against Lake Stevens, running 51 yards for a touchdown with 10 seconds remaining. The "Ike Special" provided the only points in Snohomish's 35-6 loss. It was the first varsity touchdown in Ditzenberger's career, a ramble through an opposing defense that mirrors the end to Snohomish practices every day, when Ditzenberger gets the final run of practice and somehow finds the end zone, through a combination of running guile and intentionally passive defenders.
"He's someone that everybody can kind of enjoy because he has such a great personality and character," Snohomish senior captain Keith Wigney told the Everett Herald in a feature on Ditzenberger.
For Ditzenberger's feel-good story to go beyond practice to an actual competitive game took an assist from the coaching staff at Lake Stevens. The Vikings' coaches not only instructed their players to let Ditzenberger score, but to make it look relatively competitive in the process to make the moment more real for the Snohomish junior. In the video above you can see a handful of Lake Stevens defenders make diving runs at Ditzenberger, only to come up agonizingly short. Or perhaps gleefully short, in this case.
(Excerpt) Read more at rivals.yahoo.com ...
only if his mother’s a Republican.
Well, I do.
And speaking as a parent of a beautiful little girl who happens to have DS, I call you out as an ignorant *sshole.
Kindly confine your comments to things about which you have actual knowledge- like how to kill flowers and pull wings off butterflies.
Roger that ...
This is just one of a number of "feel-good" things athletes have done for challenged people over the past few years. While well intentioned - it just isn't right.
The only one I remember that really deserved it was that kid who was put into the last 5-6 minutes of a basketball game.
True, they kept feeding him the ball - BUT, he kept making the 3-pointers [like 6 in a row] ...
Sorry.
You’re an uptight d!cK!
Do you care if your life is a lie? Do you want people giving you things because, well, you are 'special'?
/johnny
Thanks for posting this wonderful story.
Are you saying that only someone that does can deal with those not able to do for themselves? That only parents of DS kids have a say?
Don't think so.
Lying is wrong. Lying to children is very wrong. Setting kids up for failure is wrong. Encouraging ANYONE to do the best with what God gave them is right.
/johnny
Hey, it was the only way that team was going to score!
This isn't a typical child. What they did was wonderful, and I believe good for the kid. In addition to what it does for the kid, it also helps educate the public a little more... which is also good.
Excellent retort! Well now J, we are waiting for a response on that one.
I absolutly love the GEICO commercial where they use an old black and white film clip of Honest Abe Lincoln struggling to answer that one. LOL!
As long as he’s doing regular course work to get his diploma, I’m OK with this little fantasy.
I see retarded kids at the workshop fairly often; it seems to me they know when to have self-esteem and when not to.
This was very cool!
>> It wasn’t real. It was a lie.<<
Just like your parents did to you when you were a little kid telling you that your picture or writing was “just beautiful”. They were lying to you and it shows in your personality today. They should have been honest with you and told you that the pictures were ugly and the writing showed a little personality. I’m sure you will do your children the justice of telling them they have no future because of coloring outside the lines.
It was a real act of kindness.
Imagine being a child of yours and just learning how to walk. Rather than encourage the child you would scold and berate the child for 'screwing up'. After all, we wouldn't want to impart false hopes upon the tyke, would we?
The teen in the article was allowed to score a touchdown. I doubt that afterward anyone actually lied to him by saying, "now that you did that I've no doubt you will one day discover a cure for cancer and be the first human to walk on Mars!'
There are events in life that just have to be taken as they are. Over-analyzing serves no purpose.
Well, I don’t have down syndrome. We treat people with down syndrome different in ALL aspects of life. We don’t call them morons, ugly, or any number of insults, despite it being “true.”
Do you think it’s wrong to hang a child’s crayon drawing on the fridge, or clap at the end of a 9 year old’s dance recital, or at the end of an elementary school orchestra performance? You’re telling me you’ve NEVER clapped politely at the end of a poor performance? Do you think it’s wrong to tell a child about Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy?
I work at a camp every summer for handicapped kids (Downs Syndrome, autistic, others.)
During the week, many of the kids make a movie. They rehearse their lines, act in scenes, etc. It's edited and put together with a lot of flash. We get a stretch limo that drives each kid the fifty yards from the dining hall to the "theater."
We have fake reporters and a cheering crowd that welcomes the kids to the "premier" and they charge up the red carpet. They all get Oscars after the movies shown.
Truth be told, they're really not very good actors. You can't even understand some of them! I dread the day they find out that it was all a set-up! They'll get retroactively disappointed that it wasn't all real.
I let gravity and reality guide my kids when they were learning to walk. Just letting reality work without screwing up a child's perceptions by injecting falsehoods worked well enough.
And nobody is talking about scolding or berating except you (projecting?).
My kids turned out just fine, as are my grandkids. And they all have a realistic, grasp of what they can and can't do.
/johnny
Yes, actually. Not too much into pagan perversions.
And no-one is talking about insulting anyone (more projection?). Just respecting the individual honestly.
/johnny
At a UIL(or whoever) sanctioned sporting competition? Maybe not so much.
/johnny
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.