He paces ardently at the end of his players’ bench. His gaze is stern with an underlying focus showing through his stiffened cheeks. He barks out commands to his team with vigor, unrestrained by his ailing throat. It is a Tuesday night at McInturf Gymnasium, and Federal Hocking is facing conference rival Eastern. The man I speak of is not the Lancers’ head coach. He is their team manager. He is Billy Porter. He is developmentally disabled. He is lucky to be alive.
*
It was September 8, 1981, and Sharon Porter was a mother of two in her second marriage. Her son, 10-year old Billy, was an active kid and a promising athlete. Billy was a little league all-star in baseball and was one of the leaders of his basketball squad. Billy’s birthday had been celebrated one week before, and he had received a new dirt bike. After a tiff with his mother on that morning, Billy found himself in a rebellious state of mind as he joined his cousin and sister for a dirt bike ride. The rules had always been clear. They were to ride in one specific direction on the path allotted for them and wear a fastened helmet whenever on the bikes. This time, Billy broke both the rules.
He tossed on his helmet without buckling it and took off on the bike going the “wrong way.” He eventually collided with the bike ridden by his sister and cousin. Billy fell off the bike, and the bike’s motor flew into the air and landed, tragically, on his face. When Sharon Porter came to the scene, what she saw was a mother’s worst nightmare.
*
Between the junior varsity and varsity games (at which time the girls play—Billy is not manager for the girls team) Billy walks up to the referees of the next game and greets them jubilantly. He jokes and talks with them. As the game begins, he heckles them. He constantly refers to one as “baldy” and assures him every time he makes a call that it is the wrong one. The official turns to Billy, points at him playfully, and laughs. What on earth did Billy say to them before the game? I think. This guy is like some kind of referee wind talker. Billy Porter just broke a social barrier that fans, coaches, and players across the world can never seem to figure out.
Then, we walk out into the lobby. Walking with Billy outside the gymnasium on game day is like walking next to Giorgio Armani on the Red Carpet. He knows everybody. He knows all the referees, coaches, and cops in the area. One of those very cops, Jimmy Childs, predicts that someday they will have a statue of Billy outside the school.
*
Sharon was horrified at the sight of Billy after the accident. “It looked like he had no face,” she explains. Her father instantly got his pickup truck and rushed them to the nearest hospital. When they got there emergency room doctors, angered that Sharon had not called 911, informed Sharon that Billy would likely not live through the drive to Columbus and they would prefer that she not go in the ambulance.
“They must have thought I was crazy,” Sharon says to me. “That’s cuz’ you are crazy mom!” Billy fires back. They laugh. Unrivaled sense of humor, check.
Sharon, drenched in the blood of her own son and living through utter hell, refused to be away from Billy. She hopped in the ambulance shaking wildly and praying frantically. Things would only get worse from there.
*
Now we sit in Athletic Director John Murphy’s office. Murphy and Billy share old stories, talk about the night’s referees, and argue about who they consider Federal Hocking’s biggest rival. Amidst conversation is uproarious laughter. John Murphy looks relaxed talking to Billy right now. Relaxed? I thought. The man is hosting three basketball games on a Tuesday night.
This speaks to what I have seen out of Billy. Everyone he approaches smiles, laughs, and just seems to be taken away from their daily burdens for the short time Billy is with them. McDonalds may want to make you smile, but Billy Porter does it. Billy’s the kind of guy that generates more smiles than a Colgate commercial. He could cheer up Mark McGwire in a confessional. He could make Eeyore look like Elmo.
Murphy turns to Billy and asks what is in his water bottle. Billy jokingly proclaims, “Whiskey!” More laughter. More Smiles. Even a high five.
McDonalds doesn’t stand a chance.
*
The ambulance trudged up the road toward Columbus. No speed could have been fast enough for Sharon, not with her son dying in the back. When they reached Logan, around halfway to Columbus, Billy stopped breathing. For a daunting three minutes, Sharon Porter’s worst nightmare was becoming more and more of a fatal reality. The EMS workers frenetically resuscitated him. They were in the clear but not for long. A mere five minutes further up the road a tie rod end broke on the ambulance. They were stuck. Sharon sat in the front seat hysterically, screaming and praying.
Another ambulance bolted over to get them, the next thing Sharon knew she was in Columbus and her son was about to go into surgery. Billy had two blood clots on his brain and broke every facial bone except his nose. They did emergency surgery. A dentist did his facial surgery by looking at an old photograph of Billy. Remarkably, he was able to restore Billy’s face to look strikingly ordinary. After surgery Billy laid in a coma.
Sometimes in sports we label injuries as day-to-day as far as when a player will be able to play again. Billy Porter was listed as day-to-day as far as whether he would be able to live again.
*
Billy takes me into the Federal Hocking coach’s office at halftime of the girl’s game. He brings in a black duffel bag. I open it. It is a collection of Billy’s accomplishments. His old baseball and basketball pictures are included along with some yearbooks. As we review the items together, one thing in particular strikes me. Billy was a member of the Athens County 1989 Special Olympics basketball team. The team won the Special Olympics state championship. Talk about overcoming adversity to fulfill your life goals. Billy was so close to dying and still managed to find a way to go back to playing the game he loved. I sat in that office and looked up at Billy as he explained his team picture. I thought about how we tend to idolize celebrities and people with wealth. Billy Porter measures success in a different way. Perhaps, we all can take a lesson.
*
After a while, Billy began moving limbs. He would move an arm then gain movement in a leg and so on. The hospital had told them to institutionalize him because he would never talk and never walk. Sharon would work with him every day during the coma. After six months in it, he woke up. His first words were “mama.” This brought Sharon to tears.
Sharon and Billy’s stepfather worked to stretch Billy’s muscles. They had to start from scratch. Teach him to crawl, teach him to eat, and potty train him. Sharon quit her job and gave up her life for Billy. She took him to speech and physical therapy every day.
Two and a half years after the accident, Billy Porter was walking and talking. The only signs of the accident were a scar on his throat from a tracheal tube and his developmental disability. The accident came full circle for Sharon in an unusual manner. Billy, for the first time in three years, peed standing up. The pride in Billy’s eyes touched Sharon. She was touched the same way when he first put on pants. “It’s the little things you take for granted,” she said reflectively.
Billy’s stepfather, though a vital part of his post-accident recovery, would grow to be verbally abusive to Billy, ultimately causing Sharon to divorce him. Sharon has given up everything to raise Billy, and she would not have it any other way.
*
Billy is standing with the team during warm-ups dribbling the basketball with both hands. He does it mindlessly and fluently. He surely hasn’t lost his knack for the game. He goes into the locker room with the players and leads the coaches out. The game goes on and Billy grows tired. After all, this is the third game he has presided over this evening. He turns to me and informs me that his throat is hurting, but that does not even come close to stopping him from yelling to support his Lancers.
Federal Hocking has been just as good to Billy as he has been to them. Sharon Porter is infinitely thankful for how accepting they have been to him. Billy Porter has missed only a few games in the past 23 years. Murphy and Billy share a friendship that has lasted throughout his days at Federal Hocking. It dates back to when he used to drive the baseball bus to games, and Billy would be in the back seats joking around. Sharon says she would do anything for the school.
It is truly amazing that in a story with so many heroes, a story with so many people doing extraordinary things to help one individual, we can throw in an entire community. The whole TVC community from everyone at Federal Hocking, to opposing coaches and athletic directors, to referees, to radio announcers, to fans, and the list goes on. Sharon and Billy are humbled by their kindness.
Somewhere in the world a man stands before a toilet, does his business, washes his hands, and walks out of a bathroom. Somewhere else a man wakes up and gets dressed.
Stories like these make Billy Porter smile. Stories like these send shivers down Sharon Porter’s spine.
It’s the little things.
