I'm really conflicted about this. The bullet is that there is a mentally retarted kid playing for Northwest Ohio (I think). Just like "Rudy", he showed up for all the practices, and dressed out for all the games for four entire years. (It was high-school ball, so there weren't any issues about walk-on v. scholarship to muddy the waters). The coach decided he'd let the kid take the final snap of the game and take a knee so he'd get his football letter or something. Maybe there was nothing more than just "Rudy"-style feel-goodism.

The game was a 42-0 blowout, so there appeared to be no difficulty in letting the kid take the knee. The winning coach offered instead to tell his guys to stand down and let the kid score a touchdown (so Northwest would lose 42-7 instead). They all agreed this was a good plan, so off it went. The ball was snapped, the kid got the ball, and after a bit of confusion eventually ran it down for the T.D.

Hooray for the kid, I suppose, but my disquiet comes from the self-congratulatory "victory for us all" tone of what was really nothing more than naked condescension. If the kid wanted to play football, then let him play football. He went to practice, he's wearing his pads, let him hit somebody (or get hit by somebody). Put him in on the last series so he can hit or get hit a couple of times; it's not like the game was on the line anyway. At least then he'd be being a player instead of just play-acting. Crap. Empty gestures drive me nuts.