El Mudo
11-04-2009, 07:19 AM
I was watching E:60 last night, and saw this story on Matt Ziesel, a kid with down's syndrome who plays football at a high school in Missouri.
Here's the link (http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4620840)
Basically, what it boils down to is that in a game that was pretty much out of hand, the coach of the opposing team and the coach of Ziesel's team came up with the idea that they would "let" him run for a touchdown in the closing seconds.
I know its supposed to be one of those "feel good" stories, but I came away from it feeling disgust, because it seems awful self-serving from the vantage point of the adults to put this kid in and basically act out their fantasies of doing something "good" and "great" through him. They used this kid to make themselves feel better, and that's just wrong to me.
To me, its just patronizing to the highest degree, and an absolute insult to this kid to treat him different than any other kid, especially considering the haughty tone the segment takes concerning the "criticism" they faced (its always disconcerting to me how people take YouTube comments seriously), and how the parent says early in the clip about how they always tried to treat him like their other kids.
Here's the link (http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4620840)
Basically, what it boils down to is that in a game that was pretty much out of hand, the coach of the opposing team and the coach of Ziesel's team came up with the idea that they would "let" him run for a touchdown in the closing seconds.
I know its supposed to be one of those "feel good" stories, but I came away from it feeling disgust, because it seems awful self-serving from the vantage point of the adults to put this kid in and basically act out their fantasies of doing something "good" and "great" through him. They used this kid to make themselves feel better, and that's just wrong to me.
To me, its just patronizing to the highest degree, and an absolute insult to this kid to treat him different than any other kid, especially considering the haughty tone the segment takes concerning the "criticism" they faced (its always disconcerting to me how people take YouTube comments seriously), and how the parent says early in the clip about how they always tried to treat him like their other kids.