Joshua Student Makes Football Team Feel Like Winners
JOSHUA (CBSDFW.COM) - The Joshua High School football team is celebrating the end of a memorable season.
Despite losing all of their games, the players and coaches walked off the field Friday feeling like winners. The feeling of satisfaction is all thanks to the final play of the final game, made by a very special student.
Senior Jeremiah Robles has Cerebral Palsy. "He's never had the tools to play but that never diminished his desire for football," Jessie Robles said of his son.
Jeremiah has been a part of the Joshua Owls football team for years but, until last Friday, he never got the chance to play in a game.
"It was very emotional to me," explained Athletic Director and Head Coach, Jerry Bird. "That's what coaching is all about, to give him [Jeremiah] that one opportunity was very special to everyone."
Before Friday's game, the players on the football team went to Coach Bird and asked if Jeremiah could suit up and run a play for the final game of the season against Everman.
With less than one minute left on the clock, Coach Bird called Jeremiah from the sidelines, and the senior came on the field with a vengeance.
"I got them going, I was like this," Jeremiah said raising his hands in the air, "I was like, let's get this train going, forward, backward, side to side. I just do my thing."
"He started raising his hands getting the crowd into it!" Jessie Robles recalled.
"The crowd was chanting his name when he came out, and the emotions that everyone felt," Coach Regan Ratcliff remembered emotionally, "It says a lot about the kids, coaching staff, and mostly Jeremiah, the heart he has, and we love him."
Jeremiah got the ball and ran some 25 yards to score.
"When he actually received the handoff, and ran into the end zone, he did a flip," Jeremiah's dad said proudly. "The fans were going crazy! The student body was going crazy! Everyone was chanting Jeremiah!"
While the team didn't win, it was a game the Joshua Owls won't soon forget. "It had to be the biggest thrill of the season," Coach Ratcliff said.
Monday was Jeremiah's 19th birthday. He'll graduate from Joshua High School in May.
