Jason McElwain
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Jason McElwain (born October 1, 1987), informally known as J-Mac, is an autistic high school student who graduated from Greece Athena High School in Greece, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York, in 2006. He is noted for scoring twenty points in four minutes during a high school basketball game on February 16, 2006. The game was the last home game of the 2005-2006 season for Greece Athena.
McElwain had never made the varsity team because of his size, but his love and passion for basketball led him to stay with the team as their manager. Proud of his dedication, coach Jim Johnson felt that it would be appropriate to put him in the final home game of the 2005-06 season if the team was ahead by several points. When Greece Athena was ahead by several points late in the game against the Spencerport High School Rangers, the coach put McElwain in the game which elicited a deafening cheer from the crowd. McElwain's first three-point attempt was an ; followed by a missed layup. However, McElwain then scored six three-pointers, his last one the final shot of the game. As the game ended, the crowd stormed the court and swarmed around him, as his teammates lifted him up onto their shoulders.
McElwain's achievement was immediately noticed locally and was a popular story in local media the next day. A few days after the game, media outlets beyond the local area began taking notice, and the story has spread quickly since then. (The CBS Evening News aired a story about McElwain the Thursday after the game; they received so many requests to re-air the story that they re-broadcasted it on the show the next evening.) McElwain, Johnson, and others have received continual interview requests and numerous requests for development rights to the story.
The team experienced this media attention as the regular season ended and they prepared for the postseason, but McElwain continued to encourage them with his mantra: "Stay Focused". Greece Athena ended up winning the Class AA championship for Section V (the Rochester area), but lost the qualifying game against Class AAA Fairport High School to move into the state tournament.
McElwain also met with President George W. Bush on March 14, 2006 when the President came to Canandaigua, New York. McElwain greeted President Bush off Air Force One at the Rochester airport, and the two spoke with each other and with the media for a short time. President Bush commented that he wept when he saw Jason's performance and then he gave him a bookmark and a presidential tie clip. When parting ways McElwain said to the President, "It was an honor to meet you." whereupon the President responded, "No, my honor.".rtsp://real.tvc.cbsig.net/cbsnews/2006/03/14/video1404488.rm (Real Player)
In April 2006, McElwain reached a deal with Columbia Pictures to produce a film of his life story.[link] Laura Ziskin, who produced the Spider-Man movies, will oversee the project. Two-time Oscar winner Alvin Sargent is slated to write the script.
McElwain appeared as a guest on Oprah on April 25, 2006. He met with Earvin "Magic" Johnson, who is executive producing the movie about Jason, on April 26, 2006, during a visit by Johnson to Greece Athena.
On July 12, 2006, ESPN awarded McElwain an ESPY Award in the "Best Sports Moment" category in recognition of his 20-point game. The other nominees for the award had been Dakoda Dowd's LPGA tournament appearance, Kobe Bryant's 81-point game, and the George Mason University men's basketball team's appearance in the NCAA Final Four.
References
External links
- [Full MSNBC Video of Throws]
- [Video of the Jason McElwain Story] Downloadable WMV file
- [Video Link of McElwain in the game] File extension: Windows Media Redirector (WVX)
- [Bush Visits Autistic Teen Hoop Star](CBS News)
- [Article and video from CBS Early Show]
- [AP article on McElwain's game]
- [Hoop Hero (includes article and video interview)]
- [The Word in Greece (ESPN article)]
- [Greece Athena Boys Basketball Team Website]
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