ESPN RISE

Coach Ken Marks turned to the bench and uttered words he didn't want to say to someone who didn't want to hear them. "All right, Sam, go get him."

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Laura Barisonzi

Patrick Thibodeau inspired his teammates.

Sam Thompson stuck in his chair, then rose slowly and slumped to the scorer's table -- a 6-foot-3 beacon of bad news to an audience that was extremely proud of Patrick Thibodeau's mere presence on the court but had held out hope there might be some magic in the air on a snowy night in Maine.

A senior with Down syndrome, Patrick has a spontaneity and larger-than-life personality that leave everyone around him smiling. He walks the halls of Greely (Cumberland, Maine) shouting greetings to friends and spends his lunch period goofing around with anyone at his table.

On Senior Night for the Greely boys' basketball team this winter, Patrick intended to supply a performance that would create more than smiles. But after losing one ball out of bounds and missing his first two shots, he needed a little more time.

Thankfully, play continued as Thompson knelt at halfcourt, one whistle away from replacing the team's manager-turned-starter. Ben Andreasen walked the ball up the floor and passed it to Patrick on the right wing. Patrick dribbled once and passed to Jacob Dimick in the corner. Dimick sent the ball right back to Patrick, who launched a 3-pointer from a foot beyond the arc.

He held his follow-through while everyone else held their breath. And as the ball rattled home, Patrick was already backpedaling to get in position on defense.

"It was a moment you wanted to last for as long as possible because there was so much to take in," says his mother, Pat. "It was just a blur."

Overwhelmed by emotion, Pat didn't know where to look. There was her son, being mobbed by teammates after a timeout was called. All around her, Patrick's extended family, classmates, current and former teachers and total strangers were on their feet cheering, and she wanted to see the looks on all their faces. And a few feet in front of her stood her husband, Perry, Greely's longtime statistician who had been granted a temporary release from the hospital earlier that day after suffering a stroke two weeks prior.

Patrick, meanwhile, just wanted to keep playing. An avid participant in the Special Olympics and Greely's team manager since his sophomore year, Patrick has always lived for basketball. So with the clock winding down in the fourth quarter and the crowd chanting his name, he fittingly re-entered for Thompson, a junior who two weeks earlier had instantly volunteered to give up his starting spot when Marks told the team about his plan for the Feb. 3 game against Gray-New Gloucester (Gray, Maine).

A few seconds before the final buzzer, Patrick's second 3-pointer swished in. Fans rushed the floor and Patrick's teammates lifted him to their shoulders as he raised both arms in triumph.

"It was like a Make-A-Wish dream that was better than anything that could have been planned," says Marks' daughter, Kristen, a special-education technician at Greely Middle School who for the past three years volunteered to attend every game and help Patrick in his role as manager. "He was able to succeed in the one thing he's loved more than anything else since he was a little kid. It's a memory he'll always have."

It's also a memory he relives often by watching the highlights on YouTube, still yelling as loudly at the end as he did when he was on his teammates' shoulders.

His favorite part of the video? Patrick answers easily: "Wearing the Greely uniform."

Matt Remsberg covers high school sports for ESPN RISE Magazine.