Ira Berkow of the NY Times with a feel-good story about high school football.
A 'Touchdown' Teaches a Lesson for Life
By IRA BERKOW
SOMERS, N.Y. — On a recent Saturday morning, on the home football field of the Somers Middle School here, in this quiet town about an hour's drive north of New York City, the coach of the Somers team of primarily seventh graders called a play to begin the second quarter. He had alerted the opponents, John Jay Middle School, as well.
It was hardly something that Vince Lombardi or Bill Parcells might do. But when Bud Von Heyn, the Somers coach, met before the game with Jeff Tepper, the John Jay coach, to go over the ground rules, Von Heyn said: "I need a favor from you." Tepper listened, and agreed.
"O.K., guys, line up," Von Heyn told his young players, in their red jerseys and white pants and silver helmets, on the sideline. "We're going to run the E. J. Shuffle."
Then Von Heyn shouted across the field to the John Jay coach. "Here we go, Jeff."
And Tepper, who had explained the plan to his team before the game on Oct. 18, passed the word to his team.
The play, which would start on the John Jay 35-yard line, was going to be run for E. J. (Eugene Joseph) Greczylo, a 15-year-old eighth grader who had come into the game for the first time — it would be the only time — and was instructed where to position himself in the backfield.
"Remember," Von Heyn told E. J., "follow the fullback. He'll do your blocking."
And so on this lovely fall day, with the flush of brightly colored trees as background, and a modest, but enthusiastic, crowd of parents and friends looking on in the bleachers, the ball was snapped to the quarterback, who then handed it off to E. J.. E. J., the husky lad with the gentle face and an intense but slightly wobbly running style, tucked the ball beside his belly, made his way toward the sideline and then turned upfield toward the goal line.
"Go, E. J., go!" came shouts from the Somers side of the field — and the players who stood along the John Jay bench.
E. J.'s blocking teammates barely touched their opponents, but the opposing players, giving chase, seemed to fall or trip or lunge and, with arms outstretched as though they were about to embrace a long-lost friend, repeatedly missed the ball carrier by wide margins.
"The John Jay kids were really into it, maybe even overacting a little," Von Heyn said with a smile. "And when I talked to Jeff after the game, he told me that, yes, he thought his players should get Academy Awards."
Behind all this was the effort to make one kid feel good, to make him feel a part of things. And that kid was E. J. Greczylo, who has Down syndrome, but who had desperately wanted to be on the football team, who had not played in the team's first game the week before and was disappointed.
"When he told me he wanted to play football," said Katie Greczylo, E. J.'s mother, "I thought it wasn't a good idea." Her other child, her son, 12-year-old Alex, was in the kitchen at that moment, and her husband, George, was at work. "Alex said to me: `Mom, you're always telling us to follow our dreams. Well, football is E. J.'s passion — this is his dream.' "
" `But Alex,' I said, `What if someone hurts him?' "
She said Alex responded: "E. J.'s a big boy. He could hurt someone, too. I know, I'm his little brother."
Katy Faivre, who teaches the eight children — five of whom have Down syndrome — in a class for disadvantaged seventh and eighth graders at Somers, and who has been E. J.'s teacher since the second grade, said: "In this school, we try to treat the disadvantaged kids as though they are like everyone else. For the most part, they do what the others in the general education do. E. J.'s been in two school plays, he's in the marching band — plays the bass drum. The kid thinks he's a kid."
She added: "As long as you explain to the other kids that the disadvantaged students have certain disabilities, they listen. We make it comfortable for them to ask about it, and the stigma disappears."
In the school corridors, other students hail E. J. as they do any of their other classmates. "Hey, E. J." "What's up, E. J.?" And in his somewhat muffled articulation, E. J., with short blond hair and his book bag strapped on his back, responds in kind, as he heads for football practice.
Down syndrome, a genetic condition that affects an estimated one in 1,000 births in the United States, includes varying degrees of mental retardation.
"The way we feel about E. J.," said Matt Corning, a teammate, "is that he's one of us, part of the team. It feels no different than anyone else. And the E. J. Shuffle? We practice it. So everyone is cool with it."
Von Heyn said: "What amazed me is that when we do something like the Shuffle for E. J., you don't hear the normal grumbling from the other players that you might expect. It's like they look forward to it."
The collaboration that allowed E. J. to score a touchdown was not unique. An article in Sports Illustrated a year ago depicted a similar effort in Ohio involving a handicapped member of the high school football team. That youngster was 17 at the time, two years older than E. J.
Katy Greczylo said that when E. J. was born: "We never could have dreamed that all this would happen for him."
"He's exceeded all our expectations, with the help of this incredible school, and the Special Olympics, which also gave him confidence in the sports he participated in. And this football thing — when you think of all the troubles with sports and football that you read about like the hazing, the overemphasis, this brings you back to what it ought to be about. And the kids that were involved, they'll never forget this. It changes all our lives."
And when E. J. crossed the goal line, he was greeted with congratulatory slaps on the helmet and endearing bumps and high-fives from his teammates. The John Jay players, Von Heyn recalled, some still on the ground from their futile tackles, observed all this with broad smiles.
"My kids are still talking about it," Tepper said. "On the bus back after the game, they were asking me, `What's Down syndrome?' It was a great learning experience."
The touchdown didn't count, though E. J. wasn't aware of that, and John Jay won, 16-12.
"But E. J. was so pumped with the touchdown," his mother recalled. "And he tried to find me in the bleachers: `Mom, mom!' And he put his thumbs up. It blew me away. He looked like just a regular, typical kid out there. And when he came home, he said: `Dad, I made a touchdown! I made a touchdown!' "
And what did her husband say?
"You mean," she said, "after he wiped away the tears?"
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