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Free Throws of a Lifetime

Not much is learned when your team gets blown out by 48 points. On Feb. 20, Silver Grove hammered Heritage Academy 94-46. But for those who were there, it was a night they won’t soon forget.

Tuesday was Senior Night at Silver Grove High School, a small 10th Region school in northern Kentucky. The Big Trains were playing an even smaller school, Heritage Academy, out of the 9th Region, a team that had won only five of previous 21 games.

Sitting on the Silver Grove bench was junior Josh Neace, the son of a Baptist minister. Neace is battling cerebral palsy, a disease that affects one’s ability to control muscle movement. While he’s always longed to play basketball with his friends, Neace instead remains close to the game and his buddies by video taping Silver Grove’s games.

Big Trains coach Tony Bacigalupo promised the kid that one day he would let Neace suit up. THAT night was Senior Night.

With the score getting out of hand, Silver Grove’s Nick Nelson was fouled and limped off the court. Someone had to shoot Nelson’s free throws.

Bacigalupo called upon Neace.

With the crowd and both benches roaring, Neace stepped to the free throw line. Heritage coach Steve Offut, formerly of Lexington, summoned his guard, Ryan Saint-Blancard to the sideline.

“I want to help players be successful,” Offut told me on the phone. “So I told our guard, ‘If he misses the first one, keep committing lane violations so he can keep shooting.’”

Neace fired his first attempt towards the rim. It missed badly.

On the second attempt, which Neace missed, Saint-Blancard committed the lane violation.

Neace missed again on his third and fourth free throw attempts. Then, on the fifth, the ball bounced off the back of the rim and straight into the air. When it came back down, it swished the net.

Players and coaches from both teams, fans and parents in the stands, and even the referees, celebrated wildly. Many were crying.

“I’ve been coaching since 1978 and it was the highlight of my career,” Offut told me. “It was a God moment. As a coach, I tell my players all the time, ‘My job is to love you and your job is to love each other.’ That’s what they did that night.”

Heritage Academy had just been blown off the floor by 48 points, but they couldn’t have been happier. “It was an awful game for us. We just needed something good to happen,” Saint-Blancard told a local newspaper.

Additionally, Offut instructed his players to allow Neace the opportunity to make a field goal. “He attempted four or five, and our players rebounded for him. But he didn’t hit one,” Offut remembers.

Still, Offut says he’ll never forget how happy Neace was after hitting his free throw.

As a favor, this Sunday Offut is going to address the congregation at the Silver Grove Baptist Church. That’s where Neace’s dad, Matt, is the minister.

We don’t know what Offut’s message will be Sunday, but he’s already taught us all a lesson in crossing the line into an act of true sportsmanship and compassion.

Great Read!

Thanks Mantua!

Now that showed some class

Indeed!

Wow that is really great!! WTG to the coach for putting him in and the other coach for telling his guy to do that for the kid!

It's stories like this that makes me have faith in the human race. Kudos to all involved in this story.