This Heartwarming Story About A Small-Town High School Basketball Game Will Warm Your Heart

The Oregonian just published a story (with video!) that the reporter realized wouldn't jilt the planet off its axis. The lead, after all, reads: "In a small gym in the middle of nowhere, two boys locked eyes last fall in the final seconds of a meaningless, one-sided high school basketball game." Surely with that, your pulse quickeneth not.

But since you're either snowed in or tired of reading about people snowed in, go give it a read. (And do read it first, before clicking the video, lest you replace imagination with memory on the read-through.) Here's the gist. A young man named Davan Overton in unincorporated Oregon plays on his high school basketball team despite a tumor on his spine that has, since he was a toddler, hampered his motor skills and speech. If he takes a hard shot to the head, he may die, so basketball, a limited-contact sport, is Davan's only outlet, and very important to him. His coach believes in giving Davan regular playing time, and Davan gets to shoot, though he's painfully aware of how bad he is at it.

In the school's first game last fall, with Davan's team comfortably ahead, he got onto the court and aimed at making at least one basket. He missed a good number of shots, until a player on the other team named Ethan McConnell did something very selfless and kind, and even though there's not a whole lot else to this story, describing here what happened next would constitute a spoiler, so if you're interested in reading about simple human grace and determination, you'll just have to spend a few minutes with the full story. Then watch the video and try not to get verklempt. Really, what is it with sports sometimes, turning us all into blubbering saps.

Two Oregon teenagers, a basketball and the moment the game became secondary [The Oregonian]