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Young footballer finds plenty of excitement
on sidelines
By Bill Whitaker
For those who follow football, the past few days have been
something to write home about, including the most exciting game
Abilene High has played in many a moon, plus thrilling victories
by all three local colleges.
Then you had Adam Harwell, 15, suiting up for the first time
against any and all who might besmirch the name of Madison Middle
School.
Granted, Adam wasn't exactly permitted to take to the field
during Madison's gridiron matchup against the Lincoln Longhorns
last week, but he still made his presence known.
In fact, he managed to get roundly denounced by two ill-tempered
fans from Lincoln, though this probably arose through misunderstanding
more than anything else.
Because he suffers from Down's syndrome, Adam, son of Dan and
Donna Harwell, is not your typical Madison Middle School student,
though he certainly has as much school spirit, if not more so.
Since the beginning of the school year, that spirit has met
with deep frustration. Among other things, Adam was deemed too
old to play alongside the Madison Bison in football.
The exclusion was killing him, too.
GET OUT THERE!
It hasn't hurt that Adam is so well-liked at Madison. To quote
Madison principal Mac Hurley, students have always been "very
accepting of those with disabilities." Secondly, Adam tries
hard to emulate and even imitate those he admires on campus, students
and teachers alike.
This can lead to interesting situations, Mac said.
"He's watching everybody all the time," Mac joked,
"picking up the good and the bad!"
The fascination with football only arose recently, but Adam
has become insufferable because of it.
"He had been begging me and begging me to write a note
to Coach Hicks to see if he could play football," Donna Harwell
said last week. "He just kept asking me if he could wear
the shoulder pads and the helmet."
Stan Hicks, one of the Madison coaches who has known Adam for
a couple of years, said it was obvious football fever had struck
the youth. Adam had begun trying on the helmets and shoulder pads
of his easygoing teammates. He liked the fit.
"You could tell he really wanted to play," Coach
Hicks said.
In the end, coaches decided to let Adam adorn himself with
the bright orange Madison jerseys and join his teammates for a
real game. He didn't play that day, but coaches did give him a
clipboard like those genuine coaches sometimes use. And so, Adam
would stand on the sidelines, effortlessly aping whatever the
other coaches did - ordering players onto the field, often when
they weren't supposed to be on the field, and trying to remove
the helmets of fellow players just off the field, even if their
bellies already swished with water.
FANNING A DISPUTE
But that's not what Adam's teammates - always polite to the
fellow student they dubbed "Coach" - will remember about
Adam Harwell.
Close to the game's end - during which the Madison team was
trailing - a dispute broke out between Madison coach Dwayne Findley
and Lincoln Middle School fan John Alvis over Alvis' being in
a sidelines area reserved solely for players and coaches.
Most of the dispute involved the tone in which John was told
to leave the field - a tone that, considering the kind of day
he had had, only made him bristle more with resentment. (Of course,
if I remember my own school days, no self-respecting coach ever
<I>asked<I> someone to do something.)
In any case, being told rather than asked made John reluctant
to leave the field. Soon, determined coach and stubborn fan were
nose-to-nose. Only when Lincoln's own coaching staff caught sight
of the predicament did they manage to prevail upon John to give
up the ground.
But that wasn't good enough for Adam. Having witnessed the
dispute between Coach Findley and the fan, Adam stared a moment
at John Alvis, by now walking away. Then Adam threw down his clipboard
with dramatic flair, charged after John, got right in his face
(at least, as far as Adam could manage this) and began dressing
him down angrily.
To John Alvis' great credit, he stood there and took Adam's
rage with all the grace he had lacked moments earlier with Coach
Findley.
After Adam was lured away from the somewhat baffled Lincoln
fan, he thought again of the situation and charged off again to
deliver another tongue-lashing.
"Well," teammate Nick Davenport said, taking stock
of Madison's poor showing against Lincoln that day, "at least
Adam's having a fun football game!"
"He's not afraid of anybody," Donna told me later.
"Being the youngest of four boys, he can take care of himself."
Later, John Alvis said he was still steamed at being admonished
by Coach Findley but had nothing at all against Adam.
"He could tell me off all day," John conceded, "and
that'd be fine."
Maybe Madison coaches can arrange this for John.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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