Are You J-Mack : An ON FIRE Documentary Short

We had a plan to bring you a story tonight about a kind of prep school that prepares football players for the NFL draft and big contracts, [music] but we're going to call an audible. We're going to switch sports tonight because we've run across an absolutely amazing basketball player that we want you to see. Hard practice tomorrow, all hour and a half. Let's get ready for Arcadia. Let's go. >> One, two, three, team. Helping with whatever the team needs. And go. Get them motivated, uh hand out water, and just be enthusiastic. I want to share a story with you that will melt your heart. I grew up in Rochester, New York, and [music] down the road from where I grew up, there's a high school where one of the most unbelievable, emotional sports moments ever took place. This wasn't the NBA, it wasn't [music] March Madness, this is a public high school gym. There were no celebrities there, there were no scouts, there were just some wooden bleachers and a story that somehow made its way around the world. And what's wild is that when it happened, nobody thought it would be famous because the person at the center of it wasn't supposed to matter. He wasn't the star, he wasn't even a player. He was the water carrier. He was the towel guy. He was the ball boy, and he had autism. His name was Jason McElwain. Most unlikely hero, a special ed student by the name of Jason McElwain. Let's keep it going. Jason is the basketball team manager. For the past couple years, he's been assisting coach Jim Johnson, helping with whatever the team needs. And go. Get them motivated, uh hand out water, and just be enthusiastic. Enthusiastic, to say the least. Despite being born with autism, Jason's father says his son has never had a problem expressing himself at basketball games. You know, I was always concerned that he might [music] get a technical and they lose a game because he, you know, start yelling or whatever. >> I said we'll have a hard practice tomorrow, all hour and a half. Let's get ready for Arcadia. Let's go. One, two, three, team. It was the last game of the season. The score doesn't really matter anymore. The season's basically over, and the coach does something kind, something symbolic. He puts in the team manager, Jason, also known as J-Mac, who's autistic. He has special needs. He's a kid who showed up every day. He helped the team. He loved the game, but never played a real minute. Now, nobody expects anything. You can even hear it in the crowd. This isn't tension, this is, you know, a polite applause. And then he shoots. Swish. Nice moment. Good for him. And then he makes another one. Okay, that's interesting. Then he makes a third three-pointer. Okay, now something shifts in the gym. You can feel it. People stop sitting. They stop clapping politely. They start leaning forward because this isn't charity anymore. This guy is for real. Shot after shot from the corner, from the wing, hands in the face. Six three-pointers in a row, 20 points in 4 minutes, and the gym absolutely loses its mind. For the last game of the season, coach Johnson decided to let Jason actually suit up. Not to play necessarily, just to let him feel what it's like to wear a jersey. At least that was the plan. But with 4 minutes to go in last week's game, coach Johnson stood up and pointed to number 52. Jason McElwain. After years of fetching water and toweling off other people's sweat, Jason was actually in a game. His first shot was a 20-footer from the right baseline. Was it close? Did you almost make it? >> missed. I just air-balled it. And like, just, dear God, please, let's just get him a basket. His second shot missed, too, but the third was a charm, a three-point no-doubter. And Jason wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot. If I wasn't there to witness it, I wouldn't have believed it, you know. You caught fire. >> just caught fire. I was hot as a pistol. Jason ended up shooting six three-pointers. One right after the other. He had 20 points total, >> [screaming] >> and each time a shot went in, his teammates and the crowd went a little crazier. All that time, they thought he was just the ball boy. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was a player who never got put in the game. Maybe he had it in him, and no one ever thought to look. And that's where this stops being a sports story and starts being a life story. [music] Because this happens every single day. We label people. We reduce human beings [music] to categories. We decide, he's just support. She's behind the scenes. That guy, he's not built for this. He's the towel guy. He's the water carrier. He's not the builder, he's the helper. He's not the speaker, he's the listener. He's not the learner, he's the guy who supports the learners. And once a label sticks, we stop looking. We stop expecting. We stop investing. [music] We stop imaginating anything more. And sometimes we're not just wrong, we're catastrophically wrong. Because sometimes the people we least expect aren't lacking ability, they're lacking opportunity. They're not empty, they're loaded. They're loaded with depth, they're loaded with fire, they're loaded with talent. They never got called off the bench. History is littered with people everyone misjudged until one moment ripped [music] the mask off the lie. And the lie is simple, but deadly. That you can measure someone's potential by where they're standing right now. Except you can't. Because sometimes the towel guy is the deadliest shooter in the gym. Sometimes the quiet one is carrying oceans of Torah no one ever bothered to tap into. Someone Sometimes the guy nobody turns to is the only one with the courage to step forward when everyone else freezes. And sometimes, if we're being honest, the most underestimated person in the room is the one looking back at you [music] in the mirror. Because here's the part that should make us a little uncomfortable. Sometimes we do it to ourselves. We hand ourselves the towel. We grab the water bottle. We stand on the sidelines and say, I'm not really cut out to learn Torah, I'll just support it. I'm not the type who gives to you, Rim, I'll just [music] tend them. I'm not built for real chesed, I'll just send checks to those who are. And those are respectable roles. They're honorable roles. But at the end of the day, they're sideline roles. Maybe the story of Jason McElwain isn't just [music] inspirational, maybe it's accusatory. Maybe you've been showing up your whole life being dependable, being helpful, being nice, but never stepping onto the court. [music] Not because you couldn't play, but because somewhere along the way you decided you weren't a player, you were just [music] a towel boy. Well, Judaism doesn't believe in towel boys. Judaism doesn't believe in spectators. The Torah wasn't given to fans, it was given to participants. You don't need to be the star, you don't need to hit nine shots in a row, but you do need to take the shot. Because the tragedy isn't missing, the tragedy is never trying. The tragedy is convincing yourself that you're just the ball boy. But maybe you're not. Maybe Jason McElwain isn't the story. Maybe Jason McElwain is you. Because he is autistic. Jason says he's used to feeling different. But never this different. Never this wonderful.