Middle School Football Team Manager Rolls His Way to First Touchdown

The coaches of a middle school football team in Missouri surprised the team’s wheelchair-using manager with the chance to score an exhibition touchdown before a game on October 15.

Vincent Houseman, age 13, is the team manager of the Grizzlies 8th grade football team at Paul Kinder Middle School in Blue Springs, Missouri, and was born with spina bifida.

Houseman’s coaches and teammates organized this special moment with the help of their opponents from the Brittany Hill football team. Before the game began, the Blue Springs coaches told Houseman that he was going on the field as soon as it started, something that had never happened before.

“His face was a complete blank and in shock, they said, when he found out he was going in for the first play,” Houseman’s father, Kris, who recorded the event, told Storyful.

In the footage, Vincent rushes down the field in his wheelchair, surrounded by his teammates and opponents, and scores his first touchdown. The players on the field celebrate with Houseman in the end zone, giving him multiple high fives, cheering, and jumping up and down.

Houseman, a sports lover, also plays on the Kansas City Kings wheelchair basketball team.

Kris Houseman told Storyful that his son lives his life determined to do whatever his body will allow – and now that includes scoring touchdowns. Credit: Kris Houseman via Storyful