Home 
Jake Porter wasn’t exactly the most talented player on his high school football team. OK, that’s an understatement. He’d never scored a single touchdown. He’d never even ran the ball. Heck, he’d never even touched the ball!
But all that was about to change. And when it did, a lot of hearts would also be changed.
Porter was a member of the Northwest High football squad in McDermott, Ohio. Porter was also stricken with chromosomal fragile X disorder, a condition that’s common amongst those with Down’s Syndrome.
But the only aspect of his life that was greater than his disability was his determination. He faithfully attended practices after his special education classes were over. He dressed up on game days at school, and dressed out in pads on the sidelines every Friday night.
However, his enthusiasm never earned him the opportunity to run a single play. With the schedule of his senior year winding down, Porter’s coach and good friend, Dave Frantz, hatched a plan to let Jake run an actual play in an actual game.
Coach Frantz made a phone call to Derek Dewitt, the coach of the Waverly football team they would face in the last game of their season, and made a humble request.
If Coach Dewitt was OK with it, Coach Frantz wanted Jake to take a handoff, and then, to simply take a knee. Nothing more. Dewitt seemed fine with the idea, so Frantz’s team rehearsed the play dozens of times at practice that week.
The game was a blur. With only five seconds left in the final game of his final season, Jake’s team found themselves trailing 42-0. Coach Frantz called a timeout, and trotted over to speak with Coach Dewitt. It was time to enact their contrived plan.
But fans could easily see there was a disagreement between the two coaches. Coach Dewitt was vehemently shaking his head and waving his arms back and forth.
Was Coach Dewitt backing down from the agreement?
A referee stepped in, and ordered play to be resumed. After Coach Frantz returned to his sideline, he gave Jake the nod. Porter donned his helmet, and for the first time, gaited out to the huddle. Jake took the handoff, as planned, and started to take a knee, but every player on the field – including the opposing team – started screaming at him, “Run! Run! Go!”
Jake – as any kid with his disability would be – was confused. This wasn’t what he’d practiced. So he started to run…but it was toward his own end zone. The white and black stripped back judge graciously rerouted him toward the line of scrimmage.
Then – in a moment that must have looked like Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea – the entire defense parted in two, leaving Porter a wide open lane through which to run.
And did he ever run! With all 21 players on the field pointing him towards the end zone, even running along beside him, Jake raced across the goal line and scored a touchdown.
The entire crowd – on both sides of the field – erupted into jubilant celebration. Mothers cried. Fathers roared. The players emptied their benches and leapt for joy over Porter’s first carry…for a touchdown!
Turns out, the coaches’ disagreement on the sideline before the play revolved around the outcome of the play. Remember, Coach Frantz had only asked Coach Dewitt to call off his brutish defensemen and allow Porter to safely take a knee.
Coach Dewitt would have nothing of it! He insisted Porter score. That was the only way Dewitt would go along with the plan.
Yep. The decision cost Coach Dewitt – who also doubled as the team’s defensive coordinator – a rare shutout.
In the postgame glee, Jake’s mom, Liz, a single mom and coffee shop waitress, ran up to the 295-pound Dewitt to thank him.
She couldn’t.
She was so emotional, she couldn’t form words.
What kind of coach would be willing to throw away a shutout for a kid on the other team?
A coach who was the first black man in history to coach in the rural conference that ran along the Kentucky-Ohio border, that’s who. A coach who had been called every name in the book, including the n-word. A coach who knew what it was like to be different from those around him.
And on a chilly Friday night in Ohio, in 2002, that same coach warmed the heart of another person who was different: a white kid he’d never met.
Click here for the online report.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Athlete
Compassion
Competition
Disability
Football
Grace
Help
Mercy
Racism
Sports
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
