You’ve probably seen these rather perplexing “What’s G?” commercials on TV. After seeing them several times, I still didn’t know what the heck ‘G’ was. So, I went and did exactly what they were hoping I’d be suckered into doing – I looked it up online. (BTW – it’s Gatorade, though I have no idea what the ‘G’ thing is getting at branding-wise.)
The only reason I bothered researching this was because of who appeared in one of the commercials. Here’s the video. Watch at about 25 seconds in. Know who that is making the basketball shooting motion?
By God, it’s Jason McElwain.
If you don’t know about him, start here and read around. In four minutes and with 20 points on an average high school basketball court with nothing but a ball and his love of the game, this young man with autism changed us forever.
As I said in a previous post, Jason McElwain is blazing a trail down a path many of our autistic children have yet to travel. He is an inspiration to millions and a role model for our children and what they can achieve. It chokes me up to know his nickname is J-Mac. Sounds a little familiar around here.
And to celebrate the other heroes of his story, from his parents to the school to the coach in tears to his teammates and the students celebrating like they’d won a world championship, this is what autism can look like when it becomes a full part of a school’s community.
One of my simple goals is that someday J-Man and I will get to meet J-Mac and shake his hand and say thank you. And I can turn to my son and say, “Look. Here’s a man who showed us that anything is possible.”
To see the two ESPN videos about his amazing story and to see other inspirational, athletic goodness, read my post from back during the Olympics and watch the videos. No matter what kind of day you’re having, it’ll brighten it.
Someone at whatever marketing firm produced these commercials had their inspiration hat on when they thought to include him in there.
There he is, right in the middle of Jordan, Manning, Mia Hamm, Jimmie Johnson, John Wooden, Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and more. Positive messages about autism are slowly bubbling through.
Seriously, kudos to Gatorade for this. I almost never publicly praise an ad, but I think they deserve it.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Whoa. Great catch! I think that maybe the best part of J-Mac’s being included in the commercial is that it’s done WITHOUT comment on the whole autism thing. He’s just — a great athlete standing among the greats.
I believe I need to go back and read your entire archive. In all my spare time, and all. When did you start this blog?!
You really should! Tim is such a good writer. I don’t get to brag on his writing a lot (too many other wonderful things about him!), but sometimes he’s so good it’s spooky.
@JoyMama – good point about them including him in the ad without commenting on anything. Sometimes a picture really is worth a few thousand words. While a lot of people will miss it, those who know realize what a powerful statement this is.
We’ve been blogging almost a year now. The early articles are kind of interesting history since we did not at all think he was autistic then. We left them in the archives because it’s good for people to see that we all have trouble figuring out what’s going on at first. The whole of the story is important, even with its missteps.
Mary – I agree with you, Tim’s quite the writer, but don’t sell yourself short either! As threatened, I’ve been working my way through your blog from the bottom up, and I love the partner-act the two of you have going. I’d be tickled if JoyDad would post more often at Elvis Sightings — the couple of posts he has done have been doozies.
Tim – I’m glad you left the archives untouched. My sense is that, among autie-parent blogs, yours is relatively unique in capturing in-the-moment responses to an autism diagnosis. In my own case, I didn’t start blogging till a year and a half later, and thinking back is a very different experience to writing about things in real time.
Am enjoying the archives immensely. Two of the many things that have resonated with me… your use of the term “sweet spot” to describe those well-regulated moments when the sensory barriers to learning have been alleviated; and, this quote: “Joining the ‘autism community’ has been like joining Christianity after living your whole life in another galaxy. ” Wow, did you nail it.
I’ll wend my way through eventually. Meanwhile, a blog-layout suggestion… I wasn’t finding any intuitive way to get back to your earliest posts, back before you got your feed set up. May I suggest an archives widget, one of those sidebar menu thingummies that categorizes posts by month and year? I also find those useful for a quick sense of how much posting has gone on at a blog, and for how long.
Did you see you got referenced in a comment on my Shameless Self-Congratulation” post?
JoyMama,
Thanks for all the compliments. Appreciate it!
I added an Archives widget, at the bottom of the first sidebar. I’m not super-thrilled with it, but it’s something. There are a bunch of improvements I want to make, and that’s been one of them. Thanks for nudging me off my butt to do it!
The archives sections only list 10 or 15 posts at a time, so if one month has way more – which most do – you still have to scroll down to page through and they show up in reverse chronological order, which makes reading forward a pain. Not sure how best to fix that. I’ll look into that at some point. You’re right, though. Some people do read through in order like that; I’ve just been slow to fix this.
I’m not sure whether to say thanks for being referenced or not.