Justin Weisner, who has Down Syndrome, has been a football fanatic ever since he was little. And last week, he made his first ever tackle on the field.
Justin Weisner, who has Down Syndrome, has been a football fanatic ever since he was little. His passion became even stronger in middle school, when a high school football player named Matt Wilson began spending time with him while doing an internship.
“I guess why Justin fell in love with football had something to do with me,” Wilson told the Charlotte News Observer. “We would wear our jerseys on Fridays. And he’d tell me every time I wore mine: ‘I’m going to have one of those jerseys one day. I’m going to play.’ “
When Weisner reached high school, he longed to play for the school football team, but his parents and the football coach worried about his safety and designated him as the team’s water boy instead. While Weisner performed his water boy duties well, he didn’t give up on his dream.
“I kept trying to convince him I just needed him as our water boy only—that he was the best water boy we had,” the coach, Nick Bazzle, said. “And he wanted nothing to do with that.”
After consulting with their family physician to determine whether Weisner was capable of playing football, his parents cleared him to play on the junior varsity team. Throughout the season, Weisner didn’t have much of a chance to get in the game—but last week, during the final match of the season, he made a tackle, and the whole crowd erupted in applause.
Even though the opposing team won by 26 points, everyone agreed that Weisner was the real winner. Weisner only made a single tackle—but for this water boy-turned-football player, it was enough just to get in the game.