The story of Allen Daniel

[never cry wolf]

Confessions of a white suburban kid here. Now, I am no longer a kid at 51, but my old high school today won their state football championship today. When I went to Prospect H.S. back in 1968-1972 I think there were maybe, let me think now, 0 black students in my lily white suburb.

We won state, Allen won state, we are all the better for it... vide me groodies from an article earlier this year:

The Knights broke into an offense and defense, lining up at the 10-yard line while the rest of the team and fans stood nearby cheering.

Daniel, who was dressed in a dark blue Prospect cap and jacket with No. 54 on one sleeve, bummed a helmet and lined up at tailback, his brother Evan's spot. While Evan shouted advice, the ball was snapped and Allen took the handoff on a draw play.

He rumbled through friendly traffic toward the goal line, removed one last impediment with a forearm and disappeared into a mass of ecstatic young athletes, who chanted both his initials and their team motto.

"A.D., A.D., A.D . . . We are one, we are one, we are one."

If you like Disney movies, it doesn't get much better than this, and one of the best things about it is that Prospect does it, win or lose.

But the absolute best thing is how much it means to Daniel, who loves football so fiercely you could say he was born to play it, except that he was born with Down's syndrome.

When they were little, Allen and Evan used to play park district flag football together.

Then they grew up. Evan moved on to tackle ball and had to leave behind his big brother, who so desperately wanted to play too.

Last season Evan barely played himself. He didn't get into a game until the last week of the season, partly because he had missed some of Pros-pect's summer program.

He had wanted to be there, but at times he had to watch Allen, whom his mother was reluctant to let tag along to practice.

"I wasn't sure how he would behave, and I wasn't quite sure the team would accept him," Tishla Daniel said.

My old HS won State today.... Many of us won much, much more...

and yes, after it was over they ran AD's play!


the times they are a changing.......

i hope

edited to change the title, it's about allan