SEATTLE (FOX 25/MyFoxBoston.com) – In a special moment during a Seattle high school football game, Ike Ditzenberger scored a touchdown for his team on a play he had been practicing for three years.  With the score 35-0 and 10 seconds remaining in the game, the Snohomish Panthers ran the “Ike Special”.  Ike, a football player who has Down syndrome, was given the football and he rushed for a 51 yard touchdown as time expired.  Ike weaved around the opposing players who could have tackled Ike but instead let him take the ball into the end zone.  The Lake Stevens Vikings won the game 35-6.


I always prefer to keep things around here wiseassy and sarcastic.  But every once in a while a story comes along that is such a pure good, it melts the cold, black heart of even the most cynical Masshole.  So much of the world of high school football is populated by stupid jocks, psycho parents and sociopathic, egotistical coaches with delusions that they’re Bill Parcells.  And yet everyone involved with both these squads got together and committed a perfect act of human decency.  It’s like Lindsay Weir asking Eli, the special kid, to dance at the Homecoming on the “Freaks and Geeks” pilot.  And they deserve to be mentioned for it.

I have no idea what life is like for Ike Ditzenberger.  But it’s fair to say that anyone who ever made his life miserable, taunted him, picked on him or broke his mother’s heart when he came home after getting a hard time at school, will never in their lives have a moment like he did here.  Or ever know what it’s like to have a stadium full of people cheering you on for no other reason than they want to see you forget your problems and be happy for a while.  Thanks, Vikings and Panthers.  Now let’s get back to our regular vulgar nonsense, once I go get this dust out of my eyes.