Hitting a Man with Glasses

Some of you may have heard about the autistic high school basketball player in New York. After his dedicated service to the team as a manager, the coach thought it would be a treat to send him in to play the last few minutes of a game, whereupon he scored six 3-pointers, a school record. In three minutes. The boy said in an interview, "I was a pistol...I was on fire!" I guess all that time on the bench he was calculating velocities and trajectories. The coach must be beating himself up for not finding this out sooner. If this sounds like a Disney movie, well, it probably will be; several studios are already seeking out the rights to his story.

This all sounds wonderful and tear-jerking, but I think we're forgetting something: what about the normals? Let's say you're an average kid on the opposing team. What do you tell your friends? You got yo' ass beat by Rain Man?

And try this story on for size: in Cincinnati a quadruple amputee from birth has an 11-10 record in high school wrestling. The guy's got a head, trunk, penis, and 4 stumps, and that's all he needs to pin 11 normals on the mat (it doesn't hurt that missing those 4 limbs puts him into a ridiculously light weight class relative to his upper body strength). You have to watch the video links on the page to get the full effect, but it's pretty obvious this guy makes Christopher Reeve look like a crybaby.

But really, what are you going to do against this guy? Your first impression is to hold back, because you know if you win you're going to get booed out of the gym; it's like pimp-slapping a woman...who doesn't deserve it. Then when you figure out the guy's actually good, you're left fighting for your social life, knowing you're in for a major pantsing if you lose to someone with no arms or legs. You just can't win. I think we need to start a society for able-bodied and able-minded sportsmen: the Society of Average Expectations. No retards allowed.

Category:

• Sports
• Society