He plays basketball indoors and he plays basketball outdoors.  In lieu of cartoons or the Disney channel, Ezra like to follow his favorite team, the Los Angeles Lakers, on TV.  His favorite player is Pau Gasol.  ABC News helped arrange a meeting between Pau and Ezra.  The video below captures the meeting as well as providing some additional background on Ezra.

Ezra’s happy spirit, determination and willingness to share his story with others inspires us all to be more accepting of differences in people.  Kudos to Pau Gasol for his role in this story.  Pau is not your typical NBA player.  Read about the former medical student and opera lover at Sports Illustrated.

ENJOY THIS VIDEO WHICH FEATURES EZRA FRECH MEETING HIS HERO PAU GASOL

As a result, an inspirational sports story can touch many lives. The ten stories below have.

Here are our Editor’s selections for the “Top 10 Sports Feel Good Stories of the Decade”

10. 12 year-old girl pitches perfect game. In a Bayonne, NJ Little League game, Mackenzie Brown became the first player to throw a perfect game in its 58 year-old history. Mackenzie, one of only 2 girls in the Bayonne league, struck out 18 batters — all boys — in route to her perfect game.  Read more/See video

9. One-handed player wins Div. I basketball scholarship. Kevin Laue’s left arm ends at his elbow as the result of his mother’s umbilical cord cutting off the circulation and stunting the arm’s growth.  While he could never quite succeed on the monkey bars or with a guitar, he plays basketball at a very high level.  He earned a Division I scholarship to Manhattan College.  Read more/See video

8. Blake Hoffharber’s shot from the seat of his pants. A high school basketball player’s incredible shot.  See video

7. Maurice Cheeks assists 13 year-old National Anthem singer. Natalie Gilbert, a 13 year-old, began singing the National Anthem before a basketball game between the Trail Blazers and the Dallas Mavericks on April 25, 2003. When Gilbert struggled to find the correct words for the song and became flustered, Trail Blazers’ Coach Maurice Cheeks came to her rescue.  Read more/See video

6. College basketball coach Don Meyer overcomes car accident and cancer to set all-time NCAA wins mark. Another impressive Don Meyer record:  In his 37 years of coaching, one player — only one — hasn’t graduated.  Read more/See video

5. Father’s response to daughter tossing souvenir ball back onto field. The crowd cheered Steve Monforto’s catch of a foul ball at a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game on September 16.  But the loudest cheer came when Monforto hugged his daughter after she tossed the ball back onto the field after he gave it to her to look at.  Read more/See video

4. Michael Oher’s inspirational story:  from homeless to top NFL draft pick. If you’ve seen “The Blind Side,” you know the story.  Read more/See video

3. Sportsmanship shines at college softball game. Opposing team players Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace carried Sara Tucholsky around the bases when her injury prevented her from taking a home run trot on her own.  Read more/See video

2. Team Hoyt. A father-son team whose picture should be next to “inspirational” in the dictionary.  An amazing story.  Read more/See video

1. Jason McElwain, diagnosed with autism, scores 20 points in 4 minutes in his first varsity basketball game. His point total included 6 three-pointers.  Read more/See video

SportsFeelGoodStories.com showcases inspirational sports stories that focus on good deeds, overcoming obstacles, achievement and sportsmanship.

As is later revealed, the young Natalie Gilbert, had been fighting the flu and was still sick the day of the performance. When Cheeks was asked what motivated him to go over and start helping Natalie, CNN quoted Cheeks as saying, “You know, I don’t know. I think as I saw her stumble on the words, she looked helpless, and I just started walking. I had no idea what I was going to do, what I was going to say. But as I approached her, I just wanted to help her, and I didn’t know if I even knew the words…You know, I just wanted to help her out. I didn’t want her to stand there helpless, nothing to do. So I just wanted to help her out.”

Prior to coaching, Cheeks played 15 years in the NBA, most notably with the Philadelphia 76ers, and earned a trip to the All-Star game 4 times. Helping a young singer in her time of need was another All-Star moment for Maurice Cheeks.

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THE STORY

From Rick Reilly’s column in Sports Illustrated:

“Strongest Dad in the World

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life,” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.”

TO FINISH THE STORY: Sports Illustrated

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NBC Today Show Youtube video — “Today’s Real Heroes” segment (10 minutes in length, but well worth the watch)

MORE ON THE STORY

Dick and Rick’s achievements are staggering. As of August, 2008, Team Hoyt had completed 229 triathlons, 84 half marathons and 66 marathons. Wow!

Their achievements include these personal bests:

• A 2:40:47 marathon
• A 59:01 10 miler (Are you kidding me? That’s running sub 6-minute miles!)
• A 17:40 5K

Check out all of Team Hoyt’s accomplishments included events and personal bests at www.teamhoyt.com.

THE STORY

Sara Tucholsky’s home run results in an amazing display of sportsmanship.

ESPN.com:

Tucholsky got a lift from the opposition in scoring her first homer.

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school’s career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.

Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday’s conference doubleheader at Central Washington’s 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.

It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon’s 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.

Finish article: ESPN.com

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ESPN YouTube video (about 7 minutes):

Central Washington University web site:

Central Softball Players Win ESPY Award

July 17, 2008

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — The simple act of sportsmanship by Central Washington University softball players Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace, which garnered more than a month of national media attention this past spring, has now won the girls an ESPY award for best moment in the past sports year. The girls, along with Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon, were honored Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at the taping of the 16th annual ESPY Awards at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The ceremony will air Sunday, July 20 at 6 p.m. on ESPN.

Put on by ESPN, the ESPY, Excellence in Sports Performance, is a premier sports awards event that honors individual and team athletic achievements and other sports-related performances each year. The winner in each category was decided by fan votes. This year, singer Justin Timberlake hosted the event.

The moment Holtman and Wallace were honored for is one that people are still talking about and will continue to talk about for a long time. It was during a home game at CWU on April 26, when the pair performed a selfless act of sportsmanship, that to them was “just the right thing to do,” that caught the attention of the nation.

During the game, Western Oregon senior outfielder Sara Tucholsky hit her first-ever home run. Distracted and surprised by her accomplishment, Tucholsky missed first base as she ran past it. She turned around to tag the base, but her knee gave out, sending her to the ground in pain. She had torn her ACL.

Finish article: www.cwu.edu

THE STORY

The Independent:

Jason McElwain: A Very Unlikely Hero

It was the last home game, and Jim Johnson, basketball coach at the Greece-Athena high school, thought: why not? His team were cruising to victory and there were just four minutes left on the clock. So he put in the 17-year-old kid who had worked so hard all season at keeping statistics, running the clock, and handing out bottles of water and endless encouragement. The gesture was meant as a reward. Instead, coach Johnson created a sporting fairy tale for the ages.

The kid in question wasn’t just any kid. At the age of two, Jason McElwain had been diagnosed as autistic. So well, however, had he coped with the adversity that he became a hero to his schoolmates. He also became a relatively decent shooter of a basketball. But 5ft 6in is on the small side for a game where height counts for so much. However many times he tried out, the boy everyone knew as “J-Mac” could never quite get into the team proper – until those four magic minutes one evening last month. But only a Hollywood script writer could have imagined the real-life fantasy that would then entrance America.

In Jason’s words, “I just caught fire, I was hot as a pistol”. True, he missed his first two simple shots. But then, on the school gym floor, in front of 900 intensely involved spectators, he entered “the zone”, the almost paranormal state where everything a sports player attempts turns to gold. His third effort rattled the board and dropped through the hoop. And then another, and another and another. By the time it was all over, Greece-Athena had put its local rival Spencerport to the sword with a 79-43 victory.

Jason alone accounted for 20 of the points, six long-range three-point shots and a two-pointer from closer in. Even though the Spencerport players didn’t hustle him too aggressively, it was still four minutes of undiluted magic. When it was over, grown men were weeping as his teammates carried him off the court on their shoulders.

Finish Story: The Independent

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ESPN via YouTube (5:27):

MORE TO THE STORY

ESPN.GO:

“Today, Jason travels the country to help raise funds to battle autism. The importance of his work cannot be overestimated.

The Autism Society of America estimates that the lifetime cost of caring for a person with autism is between $3.5 million and $5 million, and the United States accumulates nearly $90 billion in autism-related expenditures annually. When you know that 47 million Americans are without health insurance and that 41 percent of uninsured people don’t go to the doctor because of the cost, Jason using his celebrity status to address this need is not a quaint, happy ending to a heartwarming story. He’s addressing an ongoing need. And although his mother, Debbie, admits it can be tiresome at times, she also recognizes the importance of the work.

“We didn’t ask for any of this,” she says. “We were just trying to be good parents and do what’s best for all of our children. His brother got him into basketball, and years later, something very special happened because of it. If other parents like us can find some hope from this, then we want to be there for them.”

Finish article: ESPN.GO

Australia’s 543 mile race from Sydney to Melbourne is considered to be one of the toughest ultra-marathons. World-class athletes typically took about 7 days to complete a race of that length by running for 18 hours per day and sleeping for 6 hours. These athletes, usually in their twenties or thirties, were backed by sporting goods manufacturers and equipped with the latest and greatest gear.

In 1983, a non-traditional entrant decided to race. A 61-year-old farmer, Cliff Young, came dressed in overalls and work boots. At first, most suspected he had come to watch the race. When he picked up his racing number, it created a bit of a stir.

A reporter asked him, “Who are you and what are you doing?”

He replied, “I’m Cliff Young. I’ from a large ranch where we run sheep outside of Melbourne.”

He went on to say, “…I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or four wheel drives, and the whole time I was growing up — until about 4 years ago when we finally made some money and got a four wheeler — whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres. Sometimes I’d have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d catch them. I believe I can run this race. It’s only two more days. Five days. I’ve run sheep for three.”

When the race began, the professionals quickly jumped out to an early lead. Young’s gait was more of a shuffle than a pure running style, as he appeared to move leisurely without expending much energy. When other runners stopped for the night to sleep and rest, Cliff continued to move. Although he was still far behind, he continued to make his path for the finish line.

Every night he pulled a little closer to the lead pack. By the last night, he had moved into first place. In a fable-like fashion, the tortoise had passed all of the hares. The 61 year-old, with no teeth, won first place breaking the race record time by 9 hours! After the race, Cliff said that he imagined he was chasing after sheep and trying to outrun a storm. His finishing time was 5 days, 15 hours and 4 minutes.

When awarded the $10,000 first place award, Cliff indicated that he was unaware of any prize before signing up for the race. “They’re five other runners still out there doing it tougher than me,” said Cliff, who ended up giving each of those runners $2,000 and not keeping a penny of the award. Cliff Young became a national hero.

Cliff Young died of cancer at the age of 81. The “Young-Shuffle” style of movement that Cliff pioneered was used by at least three winners of the Sydney to Melbourne race and is used by some ultra-marathoners today. Considered energy-efficient, the style works well for extreme distances.

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