Bowling Together

We went bowling at Lucky Strike in Philadelphia this afternoon with our friend Hal. Charlie’s gone bowling twice before, and both times with those “bumpers” on the lanes, but not today. Jim stood behind him and helped Charlie put his fingers into the three holes and send away the ball, which promptly rolled into the gutter.

0. 0. 0. Flashed Charlie’s score.

Charlie, who had sat up straight in the backseat looking out the window all the way down on the drive to Philadelphia and who was excited to see Hal, kept at it, with Jim standing behind and beside him and directing a lot of energy into guiding Charlie to pull his arm back and forward and send the ball down the shiny wood. (It also helped that there were couches to sit on and French fries to munch; Charlie made himself quite at home.) Charlie stood with Jim as the bright pink ball rolled and score! 2 pins went down. And then 3, and 5, and 1, and there were no more 0’s after Charlie’s name.

I, on the other hand, ended up bowling 0-0-0-0-10-0-0-0-0-0: Charlie beat me by 25 points and Jim and Hal were waaaaaayyyy ahead. Maybe I’m a bit hopeless (and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, as I was mostly watching Charlie), but Charlie was as patient as ever and kept at it; so often for him, that persistence is half the game.

Consider the story of 19-year-old Brian Hennefer, a 5-foot-10-inch substitute shooting guard for the Cherry Hill High School East basketball in New Jersey. He has Down Syndrome and is possibly the only boy with Down’s to play on a varsity high school basketball team. Today’s New York Times tells more:

“Someone asked him what his handicap was,” his father [Bob Hennefer] said. “He said: ‘What do you think? I have Down Syndrome.’ He’s funny too.”

Cherry Hill East’s principal, John O’Breza, said, “Every kid on the team, and it seems every kid in the school, feels that they have grown because they have seen what Brad can do.”

Mrs. Hennefer said Brad is often stubborn and is not really receptive to change in his daily routine. He does as well as he can in school, but math is difficult and often frustrating. He has a girlfriend he met five years ago through a Down Syndrome group and, like a typical teenager, wants to spend as much time with her and his other friends as possible.

He is muscular from working out five days a week in the school weight room and has a hip, floppy-at-the-top, shaved-around-the-edges haircut. Like many with Down Syndrome, he speaks haltingly. But he tries hard to be articulate.

“I want to go to college, but first I want to be with my teammates and Coach [John] Valore and have a great season,” he said after the Lenape game.

The week before, Brad had made his second 3-pointer of the season, near the end of a 75-38 loss to one of the state’s top teams, St. Patrick’s of Elizabeth — a feat that had made him quite proud.

“Not many players get to score against St. Patrick’s,” he said.

Playing with the rest of the team and having a great season and a great time—that’s pretty much what I hope Charlie might get out of the athletic (Special Olympics basketball) and other activities he has been trying. It’s not been easy for Charlie with the basketball—-he is still learning the skills and then there’s the added, and highly baffling component, of how to play with a bunch of other players, with a team—-and often it feels like the scorecard just keeps reading 0. 0. 0. And then Charlie bowls and down the pins go.

I’d better start practicing myself to catch up.