Sandalwood Sophomore Provides Inspiration to Community
There are certain people you meet throughout your life who blow you away with their character and cause you to change your entire perspective. Andrew Motley is one of those people for me.
Andrew is a sophomore running back for Sandalwood High School here in Jacksonville, Florida.
“We’re out here practicing hard, doing a lot of things right now, we’re just doing great,” Andrew says. “We are in our last game before the playoffs; we’re going to DeLand High School for our last game. So it’s really been an uphill battle for me and the team. We lost two games, but we won six of them. We’re 6-2. I don’t know what our ranking is now, but I know it’s good.”
In most aspects, he’s a typical 14-year-old kid.
“In my down time I just usually like to chill out, play video games, do anything that a regular teen likes to do,” he says.
While he has a lot in common with his fellow Saints teammates, there is one thing that makes him different than any other Sandalwood football player.
“My condition is cerebral palsy,” he says. “And it has something to do with my brain telling all the muscles in my legs what to do.”
Cerebral palsy is a disorder that causes abnormalities in the parts of the brain that control muscle movement and permanently affects body and muscle coordination.
Andrew Motley only weighed one pound when he was born, his mother says. Doctors doubted that he would even make it through his first night on Earth. They also said that he would never walk. Football? That was absolutely out of the question. But defying all odds, Andrew runs out of the locker room alongside his teammates every Friday night in the fall.
“I used to walk with a stoop for thirteen years, until 2014 and Wolfson’s Childrens Hospital came along. I’m just doing great now,” he says.
It’s still difficult for Andrew to run, and sometimes painful for him to even walk. But you’d never know it. Rather than taking it easy during practices, he asks coaches and teammates to throw to him. When a catch is made, you can’t wipe the smile off of his face. In games, he’s suited up on the sideline; either he’s giving pep talks to teammates, or standing on the bleachers pumping up the crowd.
Andrew says that playing football is like a dream come true.
“It means the world to me, man,” he says. “If I didn’t have a great coach like Adam Geis, then I don’t know where I would be right now.”
One particular moment stands out in Andrew’s mind.
“My favorite football memory,” he says. “This season was our scrimmage game against Providence High School, and I got to be in the game several times at both defensive end and at running back. I got to run for a touchdown. It wasn’t down the field, it was right at the goal line, but then when I dove in the end zone for the final touchdown, we were up like 44-0, it was really something knowing that I was an inspiration to my teammates and the world by being the first disabled child and child with cerebral palsy to come out here and score a touchdown with this kind of team.”
Head coach Adam Geis has fond memories of that scrimmage game as well.
“Providence was a good one,” Coach Geis says. The funny thing about Providence was that I was going to tell their coach ahead of time, but it was a morning game and I didn’t get to talk to [Coach] Kopp about his situation. So I put Andrew in the game, and I threw him in there at defensive end. I’m thinking ‘Okay, well, I’ll put him to our boundary for just one play; hopefully they don’t run it to his side, and you keep your fingers crossed because it’s a 50/50 shot’. They ran at him the first play and I’m just like ‘oh my god’, because they did, they pulled the guard right at him. And it was kind of funny, they hit him; he spun and really created a play and was actually in on the tackle! And they had no idea about his situation because I didn’t tell them. Then later on in the game, I put him in there and he had a nice little run for a touchdown. Their kids kind of picked up on the situation, which, uh, it’s a good thing Providence is a super high IQ school.”
Andrew’s teammates have not only accepted him, they’ve embraced him.
“Early on I think there was probably a little bit more ‘hoorah’ because he was out there kind of doing it, but as we’ve gone on honestly I think they just treat him like any other kid, you would never know,” Coach Geis says. “Obviously, you see him running around, you obviously know he’s got a disability, but they don’t treat him like that. He’s just another kid out there.”
Outside of football, Andrew has another passion.
“I recently had, on June 21, my introductory sermon to become a minister, and now I’m a licensed minister for church,” Andrew says. “It was revealed to me at the age of 4 that’s what I wanted to do. Going out to these different churches and just preaching the gospel; to spread all God’s teachings to them. I hope to go to seminary school and own my own church someday, after I retire from the NFL.”
The most wonderful thing about Andrew is that he does not let his disability bring down his beautiful spirit. It’s easy to sit around and be woeful and spiteful about something as potentially debilitating as cerebral palsy. But that’s not how Andrew is. Rather than getting sympathy from others, he wants to be an inspiration.
“Guys, for those of you who are out there, hoping that you will play football, it’s going to happen,” he says. “I just know it. It happened for me, so it’ll happen for you. I am a constant reminder to never give up on your dreams. Don’t ever give up on your dreams. Keep fighting. Get the gear and join the fight. Cerebral palsy, well, I’m getting the gear right now and I’m joining the fight.”
Northeast Florida / December 2015
Andrew Motley
Sandalwood High School
Jacksonville, Fla.
