Fox Sports – Senior Night was more significant than usual for the boys’ varsity basketball team at Franklin Road Academy in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, and it had little to do with the Panthers’ 64-47 win over University School of Nashville.
Instead, it had everything to do with an emotional last-second basket from the most unlikely player on the roster.
Robert Lewis has served as a manager for the basketball, football and soccer teams at Franklin Road throughout his entire high school career, and last Monday, Franklin Road coach John Pierce told Lewis, who has Down syndrome, that he’d be dressing out for the team’s final home game later in the week.
The honor has been a tradition for senior managers at Franklin Road for the last decade, but it was still unclear whether Lewis would actually get a chance to play against University School, where his younger brother, Matthew, is a junior on the team.
“If we’re ahead comfortably or behind and kind of out of the game, we’ll put those guys in at the end of the game, and we’ve had some good moments with those guys over the last 10 years,” Pierce told FOX Sports on Monday. “But we’ve never had anything close to what happened Friday night.”
I literally jumped out of my chair with fists pumping when that shot when down. That might as well been Larry Bird hitting a last second three to win a playoff game.
It seriously doesn’t get any better than this. Just an incredible show of sportsmanship all involved! Good stuff all around. Congrats Robert!!!
