FSU player eats lunch with autistic student sitting alone

[Liberal_in_LA]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — For one day, a mother says, she didn't have to worry about her autistic son eating lunch by himself.



A small gesture of kindness by Florida State University wide receiver Travis Rudolph — captured in a photo and shared on Facebook — had tears streaming down the face of the sixth-grader's mother, Leah Paske.

"I'm not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I'm happy to say it will not soon be forgotten," she wrote. "This is one day I didn't have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes."

Rudolph was among several FSU players visiting Montford Middle School in Tallahassee Tuesday when he saw Bo Paske sitting alone in the cafeteria, grabbed a slice of pizza and asked if he could join him.

[Lifelong Protester]

1. Made my day.

Middle school is tough enough.

[mcar]

2. Now that is a classy guy!

[MADem]

3. This needs a link--I found one, don't know if it is the one you used.

http://wtop.com/ncaa-football/2016/08/fsu-football-player-eats-lunch-with-student-sitting-alone/

More on the story:

Rudolph was among several FSU players visiting Montford Middle School in Tallahassee Tuesday when he saw Bo Paske sitting alone in the cafeteria, grabbed a slice of pizza and asked if he could join him.

The child said, “Sure, why not,” Rudolph recalled after returning to campus.

“We just had a great conversation. He started off, telling me his name was Bo, telling me how much he loves Florida State. We went from there,” the player said. “It was real easy … you’d never think anything was wrong with him. He had a nice smile on his face. Just a really warm person.”

FSU Coach Jimbo Fisher said he’s proud of his player.

“You can make someone’s day by being yourself and understanding the impact you have as an athlete,” he said.

Bo’s mother shared her anxieties in her Facebook post. Middle school can be tough. Would other kids be welcoming, or mean?

“Sometimes I’m grateful for his autism. That may sound like a terrible thing to say, but in some ways I think, I hope, it shields him,” she wrote.

“He doesn’t seem to notice when people stare at him when he flaps his hands. He doesn’t seem to notice that he doesn’t get invited to birthday parties anymore. And he doesn’t seem to mind if he eats lunch alone. It’s one of my daily questions for him. Was there a time today you felt sad? Who did you eat lunch with today? Sometimes the answer is a classmate, but most days it’s nobody.”....

[bluesbassman]

4. Kindness is priceless, yet costs nothing.

Good job Mr. Rudolph.

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. 'If you give so much as a cup of water to one of these little ones, because they are mine...'

[minoan]

5. Way to go Travis!

You make our Seminoles proud!

[rurallib]

6. hard to say anything when you're tearing up so

[Eleanors38]

7. As a Gator (class of 70), I say this is a class act.

[Lochloosa]

15. Sorry....

[genxlib]

27. Same here

From a hurricane (class of 88)

[Hoyt]

28. Christ, that explains a lot. Here's to Travis R.

[world wide wally]

8. Cheers for Travis Rudolph and the boy's Mother.

A little love goes a long way

[sheshe2]

9. For the Kindness.

K&R

[lillypaddle]

10. It only takes a small gesture

to make such a big difference - wonderful act of kindness.

[Brickbat]

11. Here's hoping parents take this story and use it to educate their own children.

[Else You Are Mad]

12. There needs to be more people like this.

Some people are just good people.

I hope it wasn't a PR photoshot, but, even if it was, it made this kids day.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Boy Do I Like That Kid!

Good on Travis! Pretty compassionate and mature for a still young guy.

[Exilednight]

14. A little piece of my faith in humanity was just restored.

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Mr Rudolph probably would have done that as an adolescent. Many of us

wish we had had the character, the courage, to hit a bully of a smaller kid in secondary school. I remember reading Noam Chomsky regretting it. Unfortunately, my ever so slightly mad mother gave me the idea that fighting was, ipso facto, bad ; especially, to hit the other person first. My brother who was not academic, not good at arithmetic, not good a spelling, used to take such strictures from my mother with a pinch of salt. In fact, it was virtually a religious principle of his to hit the other lad first. But then he had more sense in his little finger as seven-year old than I have now.

Here is another heart-warming story on this subject from a Catholic magazine called, Aletia :

http://forher.aleteia.org/articles/teen-bullying-story-kids-stand-up-to-bully/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en

Sometimes just a person's smile can be like the biblical 'cup of water'. Imagine how the lad felt when Mr Rudolph asked if he'd mind if he sat there.

[Skittles]

20. I always kicked bully ass

it was easier for me because my family moved a lot

[Glassunion]

22. Well if you open enough cans of Whoop-Ass, you have to move a lot to stay

ahead of Johnny Law.

[Stuart G]

17. This story is getting covered here and in the United Kingdom too

I would like this man to represent the USA anywhere...Real class!!!!!!!!!!!

[dae]

18. Outstanding!

[TeamPooka]

19. I feel sorry for all the kids in that school who let him eat alone. I hate them a little bit too. nt

[Glassunion]

24. Should not hate them.

You don't know their stories.

Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. - The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

While growing up, I found myself on the stomping end of a boot more times than I'd like to admit. I talked to no one who would not talk to me first. I kept my head down, and tried to become invisible. I'm actually quite good at it now, to the point of it being a skill. I have attended parties, and even meetings at work where no one I talked to afterwards could remember my attendance. My wife calls it my fly on the wall ability. Anyway, I can say that back then, at that age, I would have been terrified to do something as simple as sitting with a special needs student. It would draw attention, and when other students paid attention to me, it never ended well.

[Joe Chi Minh]

44. A fair few of them would have been ashamed, I would think,

but afraid to break ranks with the rest.

[TeamPooka]

45. peer pressure sucks

[LWolf]

46. It would never happen in my school.

Nobody sits alone unless they choose to, and tell people that they need a little space.

Of course, we aren't a typical middle school.

We're a small K-8 school, and we invest a great deal of time, energy, and pride in being open, inclusive, and safe for our students. Our middle school students aren't perfect, by any means; they are still themselves, adolescents experiencing one of the most difficult developmental stages in our life cycle, with all the social anxiety that comes with it. Still...nobody is excluded.

[GeoWilliam750]

21. Class act

[George II]

23. That's great. What's odd and sad is that all the other tables are packed, yet his table....

...and most of the one next to him are empty.

[TheBlackAdder]

25. Thanks for the post.

.


I grew up in a community with many residential developments, but our house was on a main road, away from them.

It was tough forming friendships in elementary school, because I was so separated from the others. There were strong cliques of kids, and I could only maintain about 4-5 friends, but we forged really good friendships. This carried on through middle school. When I got into high school, it didn't really matter anymore. When it college, it didn't even apply.


Kids are assholes to "the other" until they mature enough to realize their behavior is wrong. If they ever do.


.

[whathehell]

26. Very nice, very nice indeed..

:

[colsohlibgal]

29. He did a great thing

I read a summation by top psychologists on what most gives people pleasure, and at the top was doing for others when you don't have to. This young man is making this child feel better as he feels more self worth.

[yardwork]

30. Beautiful story.

[Dorian Gray]

31. Class act.

[brer cat]

32. Kindness and class. K&R

[Joe Chi Minh]

40. Very interesting how you, Americans, use the word, 'class' to denote 'heart' and

all the good and admirable qualities a big, magnanimous, generous heart will show, such as empathy, compassion. courage, etc. It may well that its usage in that context was introduced by an American racing expert.

In assessing the quality of a racehorse, 'class' is the term customarily used to denote a horse's willingness to challenge, again and again, refusing to give up - 'heart', courage. There have been some very fast horses, but without that class, they never achieve anything like their potential.

[brer cat]

41. I've never thought about the usage with regard to racehorses,

although I remember Secretariat being described as having "heart." I agree that "class" denotes heart, but imo with the added attribute of grace.

Thanks for posting. I always enjoy learning more about word usage.

[Joe Chi Minh]

42. Well, I see it as primarily American, 'horse-race rating' usage, and is perhaps not

formal enough to appear in a dictionary. But, apparently it seems to most of us as a much sounder usage than as applied to social status.

As regards the latter, I'll never forget a headline on DU in reference to a particular woman in politics, who'd said or done something gross, perhaps even by her own standards - I can't remember who it was now, though a couple of likely types spring to mind. The headline was : 'Stay classy, X !' Oddly enough, I believe I've seen it since once or twice. I was tempted to use it myself fairly recently.

When you get older, you can even get a certain satisfaction out of running a gauntlet - or walking it, as the Chindit originator evidently did, when a student at Sandhurst, a military college. Having displeased his peers - a Plymouth Brethren and very much his own man, eccentric - he was made to run the gauntlet between his fellow-students, while they whacked him with rolled-up wet towels. Only he chose to walk the gauntlet through their 'guard of honour' !

I don't suppose it would have been possible for him to hold his head high, but metaphorically he certainly did. A bit reminiscent of Chesterton's poem The Donkey. 'There was a shout about my ears, and palms before my feet.' Only the shouts would not have been of acclaim, nor the shouts Christ was to hear soon after, on his painful way to Golgotha.

[jmowreader]

33. Good player, too

http://www.seminoles.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=209602577&DB_OEM_ID=32900

[Lunabell]

34. Classy

What a good guy.

[dicksmc3]

35. So inspiring!!!

I know this kind of thing doesn't happen everyday. At least that I am aware of from the media, but, this wide receiver made me happy once again seeing his kindness toward this young boy. Autism is a disorder that can be dealt with by us if we just do the right thing. This football player Travis Rudolph is a hero in my book!! Bullying has no place in this country because IMO we have enough to deal with, without making more problems. Thanks Travis!!!

[mountain grammy]

36. Travis Rudolph and Bo Paske

[librechik]

37. I'm going to try this next time

even tho I'm usually the person sitting all alone. What a welcome and kind gesture!

[raven mad]

38. I cried. Thank you - Travis.

There are certain religions that require "shunning" for various transgressions according to THEIR interpretation of not worshiping the right god (the ONE and ONLY way to get to "heaven". (I have to do this........ "If you want to get to heaven, you've got to raise a little hell..........)

OMG OMG............... ok, I have a friend younger than me but not by much. His autism was acute and he's now in his 50's - and is a brilliant scientist but we STILL blow straw wrappers. And play trivial pursuit. And scrabble. Funny how that works, eh? Well, I lose and not by choice. Imagine how HIS mom and dad coped in the 50's?? Yep, we went to grade school together and usually rode our bikes there). I have NEVER EVER met a more kind and compassionate guy - even then. AND we swapped lunch stuff.

WHERE ARE THE PARENTS OF THOSE KIDS WHO WON'T SIT AT HIS TABLE???? Oh, yeah, denouncing Satan. And donating to sTrumpet, and listening to Rush and worshiping Sarah, and signing up for NRA and buying their new gun. Hey, parents of "normal" kids -watch your bubba's.............


I hope someone has his Mom's email and lets her know she's doing a great job and there are a LOT of us! Educators, CSW, and every cop I've met in REALLY varied areas of this state - EVERY firefighter, EVERY EMT and a lot of us just plain folks on are there for her and would LOVE to meet her son - this may sound wrong to those who don't know this condition - come on up and I promise a sled dog ride or if in summer a place to camp near Denali. Or go fishin'. Or meet a wolf or a moose or a ptarmigan!


My grandson. I have a really neat rocket ship on my refrigerator door. And his models of trains (yep, a REAL track that his kitty tends to share, as long as she doesn't eat the train). He built it. His first Etch-a-sketch (I had to go far and wide to find it) was a very exactly Puff. So we sang that one all the way back to town... Once we (his mom and dad and grandpa and me)were at a "fancy" (meaning high priced) restaurant, the Turtle Club. He was 4 and everyone in the place was enchanted by him. He drew on a paper container (for leftovers) of his back yard kitty. He left it for our server at the hostess desk.

The photo is not my grandson................. but it is JUST right! Keep everyone aware that "different" does not mean bullies are allowed (LOL! My grandson and his first dirt bike and hell YEAH that was my old ugly stupid worthless idea.............. Damn, he hits the back trails just right over logs and has to parse straight shots.)

[raven mad]

39. I didn't mean to rant.

But what the hell.................. My wonderful grandson is a kitty lover, and he also ADORES Led Zep! His mom has not yet given me permission to introduce Frank Z and Mothers of invention! Whatever, because he already knows every Beatles song so if you're road tripping beware - some really weird music coming out of THAT jeep......