Jason McElwain is the kind of guy who just won't make it into the NBA. He's as short as Yao Ming is tall, and skinnier than Nicole Ritchie after "The Surreal Life 2." He runs about as fast as George W. Bush thinks, and his 3-point shooting form is as graceful as Brian Collins doing sports highlights. He's simply not basketball material.
Oh yeah, and he's autistic.
But Jason loves basketball, so the coach at his high school in Rochester, N.Y., gave him the chance to be the team manager.
For three years at Greece Athena High School, Jason was the perfect team manager - he handed out water, ran the game clock and kept stats. He almost never missed a practice or game.
"And he is happy to do it," Jim Johnson, the coach at Greece Athena, said to The Associated Press. "He is such a great help and is well-liked by everyone on the team."
A couple of weeks ago, senior night rolled around and Johnson thought it might be nice if Jason got to put on a uniform. In the Feb. 15 home game for the Trojans, Jason, who spent years handing out water and towels, got a seat on the bench in a Greece Athena jersey.
Students and parents filled the arena, eager to see Jason play, but there was no guarantee he'd get floor time - the Trojans were still playing for a division title.
With four minutes to go in the game, the Trojans held a double-digit lead. Jason checked into the game wearing an oversized No. 52 jersey and a white headband.
The place erupted.
Shortly after entering the game, Jason got a pass in the corner, behind the 3-point line. He hoisted up his first shot as a high school basketball player and missed by a little more than six feet.
"I thought, 'Oh no,'" Johnson told the Daily Messenger of Canandaigua. "I was just hoping that he would be able to score. I wanted him to remember this in a positive way."
Then he missed a lay-up.
"I'm just sitting there saying 'Let him score just one point,'" Deb McElwain, Jason's mother, said in a Feb. 17 article published on the Web site of a local television station, R News.
But Jason's story wasn't about how many shots he made ... or was it?
In the next three minutes, Jason made six 3-pointers and a long 2-pointer. Each shot looked about as hopeless as the first, but they all went in.
"I was really hotter than a pistol," Jason told the Associated Press Thursday.
Hotter than a pistol is right - Jason was about as hot as a Browning M2 heavy machine gun.
The students couldn't believe it. The coach couldn't believe it. Every time Jason poured in another 3-pointer, the arena went into a frenzy. The single camcorder recording the historic event shook violently after each made basket.
Jason let a final shot fly at the buzzer, which, of course, found its way through the hoop. By the end of the game, he had scored 20 points and set a school record for the most 3-point field goals made. Keep in mind, all of this was done in less than four minutes by an autistic 17-year-old - it kind of makes Kobe Bryant's 81 points look dull.
Jason, who usually sat at the end of the bench in a shirt and tie, was carried off the court by admiring fans. Jason, who didn't even learn how to speak until after his fifth birthday, now holds a school basketball record.
Jason's heroics on the court were amazing, and his courage helps show that when you give people a chance, they'll pull through when you least expect it.
In the past, Jason had trouble reading, speaking and even interacting socially. But performing miracles and bringing his coach, his school and an entire country to tears seems to come naturally for him.
Sources:AP articleR News article
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