“I know.”
“You're going to become impossible.”
Jordan smiled.
“Too late.”
By the beginning of his junior year, he had built a prototype attachment that allowed athletes with limited hand strength to secure certain sports equipment more easily.
It wasn't revolutionary.
It wasn't a million-dollar invention.
But it worked.
Coach Ellis tested it first.
He tightened the strap.
Pulled.
Nothing moved.
Coach looked at Jordan.
“You made this?”
Jordan nodded.
Coach pulled harder.
Still nothing.
He smiled.
“You might have something.”
Jordan shrugged.
“Maybe.”
Coach shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“Don't say maybe when you've worked this hard.”
Jordan looked at the device.
Then at Coach.
“Okay.”
Coach smiled.
“Say it.”
Jordan laughed.
“It works.”
“Again.”
“It works.”
Coach nodded.
“Good.”
The football team used the prototype during summer training.
Then another school asked about it.
Then another.
Jordan started receiving emails.
Some were from coaches.
Some were from parents.
Some were from adaptive athletes.
One message came from a twelve-year-old boy named Marcus.
Marcus wrote that he had stopped trying out for sports because the equipment at his school wasn't designed for him.
Jordan read the message three times.
Then he replied.
He told Marcus not to quit yet.
He told him that bad equipment didn't mean he couldn't play.
He told him to keep asking questions.
And he told him something his mother had once told him.
“You don't need permission to belong.”
Jordan stared at the message before sending it.
Then he clicked send.
A year earlier, he would never have imagined himself writing those words.
Now they felt natural.
The football season that year was the best Westbrook had seen in more than a decade.
They made the playoffs.
Then the regional championship.
The night before the final game, the team gathered in the locker room.
Nobody was talking.
The atmosphere was tense.
Malik sat on the bench tying his shoes.
Jordan was checking equipment.
Coach Ellis walked in.
“Everybody ready?”
Nobody answered.
Coach looked around.
“You're nervous.”
Still silence.
Coach smiled.
“Good.”
Several players looked up.
“Nervous means you care.”
He walked toward the whiteboard.
“You don't have to be perfect tomorrow.”
He looked at Malik.
“You don't have to carry everyone.”
Then he looked at Jordan.
“And you don't have to fix everything.”
Jordan smiled.
Coach continued.
“You just have to do your job.”
Malik stood.
“What about everybody else's job?”
Coach pointed toward the team.
“They do theirs.”
Malik looked around.
Then smiled.
“Sounds easy.”
“It isn't.”
“Good.”
The team laughed.
The next evening, the stadium was packed.