Misty Eyes Or Icy Heart

To get the real picture, you should read the complete story on the link below.

Let me know if you have misty eyes when you get into the second page.


Rivals cooperate on touchdown for player with Down syndrome - Kansas City Star

"“I’ve got a special situation,” McCamy remembers telling Maryville freshman defensive coach David McEnaney. “I know you guys want to get a shutout. Most teams would want a shutout, but in this situation I want to know if maybe you can let one of my guys run in for a touchdown.”

Several days have passed since Ziesel chugged more than 60 yards down a sideline for his first high school touchdown — but the buzz hasn’t.

The YouTube clip McCamy posted Tuesday morning had received more than 1,500 hits as of Thursday night. The e-mails and messages of support also have been rolling in all week — to McCamy as well as the Ziesel family.

“It’s just amazing how one play can mean so much to one kid and then to a team and then to a community,” McCamy said Thursday after practice. “And now it’s spread not just to the community of St. Joseph, but now it’s spread across the region. How something so simple can impact so many — to me, that’s the amazing part about it.”"

As I was reading the complete article, I was thinking of altruism. I was thinking of a needed epidemic of ramdom acts of kindness. I was thinking of how great it would be if more people could see the forest at the same time they evaluate the conditions of the individual trees. I was thinking about how there wasn't any punishment for anyone involved in doing something for the good of the kid.

And then, I read this public comment:

jsered wrote on 9/20/2009 12:25:20 PM:
Hate to be the lone cynic but these stories while inspiring are becoming common place. The first ones were so unexpected and original they received national media coverage and a couple million hits on you tube. In some cases the "special" athlete and the coach became national celebrities, albeit for 15 minutes. Because of this history its not out of line to ask if the coach(es) are doing this for the special needs kid, or to put themselves in the national spotlight. Its a fair question to ask and the more often this happens the more I have to question if the people behind the stunt are genuinely doing this for the kid.

Genuinely doing this for the kid???????

It reminded me of this story: (follow the links and read the complete story for a different kind of misty eyes).

For their own good | Special Report: Tampabay.com St. Petersburg Times: "Fifty years later they are, by their own account, screwed-up men -- afraid of the dark, unable to love or be loved, twisted by anger, scarred by the whippings they endured in a cinder block hell called the White House."

Kids were put in this hell hole "for their own good."

I know which one of these scenarios I want to see more often.