Nathaniel

I truly wish that all of you could have been at Chases basketball game last night.
The coach put a kid named Nathaniel on the team even though Nathaniel isn't really capable of "making" the team on his own. Nathaniel is mentally challenged but the coach got him a uniform, including a warmup with his name on the back. Every game, Nathaniel gets to play for about the last 10 or 15 seconds. You can see him start to squirm in his chair with excitement during the last quarter cuz he knows he might get to play. Usually, time runs out before Nathaniel even gets to take 3 or 4 steps and he rarely gets his hands on the ball. Well, last night, our coach secretly told the opposing coach that he was gonna put Nathaniel in and he wanted the other team to foul him so he would get a couple of free throws.Everything went as planned and Nathaniel got up to the free throw line. He missed his first shot and made the second. Everyone went wild. The referee even made up some fake reason to give him a third shot but he missed. Nathaniel making the free throws was not really what was so great about the whole situation. What made me come to tears was that the other teams fans were all saying "SHHH" to eachother when he was about to shoot. It was the opposing teams players, standing and cheering, stretching their necks to get a better view of Nathaniel at the line. For an hour and a half, we were against eachother and for 30 seconds, everyone came together , all of us praying and hoping that Nathaniel would get his moment of glory, and he did. We all walked away from that game with a little Christmas spirit tucked in our hearts. I had a little extra because after every game, each time Nathaniel gets in there for his 10 or 15 seconds, it is Chase that is the first one to give him a pat on the back and tell him "good job".