This is amazing.
The video of a Zeeland East High School basketball player scoring a bucket during a game against Zeeland West in Michigan this week has gone viral.
In a video posted by Zeeland Public Schools Unified Basketball, 17-year-old junior Jules Hoogland, who is blind, can be seen getting ready to shoot the ball from a few feet in front of the basket. The packed gym of 2,500 went went silent as classroom aide Cheryl Beute tapped the bottom of the backboard with a yellow pole to signal the location of the hoop.
Following a few taps, Hoogland made the shot and fans inside the gym went wild, screaming and cheering for the teen.
“I was like, ‘Everyone’s staring me better. Can’t see them staring at me.’ So this is good,” Hoogland told FOX 17.
In the viral video, Zeeland East senior Ally Guffey can be seen standing behind Hoogland, who she assists on the court.
“She’s my eyes on the court, because I don’t have my cane side to put my trust in here to make sure she doesn’t let me get hit by balls, and she guides me in the right direction,” Hoogland said.
The pair knew of one another in middle school but have grown close off-the-court because of their involvement in the Unified Sports Program.
“I had never met anyone who was blind before. So I knew nothing,” Guffey said. “She put a lot of trust in me. And it just… we had a lot of trial and error. But we have come very, very far. And now we’re in a class together for the past two years.”
The school’s Unified Sports Program was started a few years ago, according to FOX 17, as a way for students to make friends.
“To watch the culture shift of our school community really made a difference,” said Unified coach Jessie Steel. “And just to be able to watch how that’s continued to grow. Students be accepted, students be shown that they matter and given a chance to really to prove that to the school body,”
Credit: Source link
