Our son...the Team Armour

You may know that our youngest, David, has a mild form of autism. He's a freshman this year and it's the first year he's been on a team for the Special Olympics. He usually participates in the individual tournaments. During the weekely practices, he's been a little half-hearted in his commitment. We have discussed it with him and told him that he has to finish basketball season because he promised his team, but he doesn't have to participate in the other sports if he doesn't want to.

Anyway, yesterday was his first tournament, the first one of the basketball season. We really didn't know what to expect. I gotta tell you, he was a Defensive Machine! After he found his rhythm about half way through the first game, he was all over the court! He was stealing the ball, blocking players, rebounding - the works. They handily won the first game 32 to 14.

The second game was played about 10 min after the first, so our team was already a little tired. The second team was pretty evenly matched with our guys, except for one player, #15, who could run the court and shoot before our team knew he had the ball. When we were behind by about 10 points in the first half, the other coach took this player out and we caught up then moved ahead by 10 points. Then #15 came back in. David made him work for every one of his shots. When #15 got the ball, Dave was on it! Once during the game one, Dave stole the ball and the player started pounding him on the shoulder. He was a trooper and stayed in the game. After a valliant effort, we lost by 12 points. When we told him how good his defense was, he said, "I'm like the team armour, huh?"

All in all, he played about 3/4 of the first game and all of the 2nd game. He was so excited after the game and we are, as always, so proud of him.