Coleman Shannon, a 14-year-old from Johnsonville, S.C., has always wowed on the baseball field as a star pitcher for one of the local Little League teams.
But the teen gave the performance of his career earlier this year when he pitched a no-hitter against the neighboring Timmonsville team, a feat extremely rare in Little League and almost unthinkable for someone with his disability. Shannon was born with a medical condition known as Amelia, in which his arm right ends at the elbow, Yahoo Sports reports.
"The other night, when he pitched the no-hitter, that was a tearful moment," Kyle Daniel, one of Shannon's coaches, told SCNow. "When you think about what he’s been through and how much it’s taken him just to get to this point, when he went out and threw the no-hitter, it was just a cheerful time for everyone."
According to the website, Shannon was determined not to let his disability deter him from anything. When his parents tried to fit him with a prosthetic arm, he didn't understand why he needed it and cast it aside.
Years later, Shannon is thriving on the baseball field and also hunts as well as plays the guitar. His mother, Jessica Shannon, said she is continually amazed by her son's determination and perseverance.
"It really is amazing the number of people out there that can do things with ease and choose not to,” Jessica Shannon told SCNow. "With Coleman, it's a determination and something that he strives to do. It’s a feeling that to a parent, you really can't describe it."
Like Coleman Shannon, 14-year-old Dugan Smith from Ohio was confronted with a disability that could have crushed his dreams of playing baseball, MSNBC reports. But the teen, whose right leg had to be partially amputated due to a rare form of cancer, decided not to give up.
Rather than give up his chance to play baseball and basketball, Smith decided to have a rare operation called "rotationplasty," in which the upper, tumorous part of the leg is cut out and reattached to the lower part, which is flipped around.
In other words, MSNBC explains, his ankle becomes his new knee and his foot becomes his shinbone. Prosthetics are used to replace the former ankle and foot.
Duggan Smith said that when he was finally able to return to school after recovering from the operation, "everyone was weird" about his backward leg. However, they've now gotten used to it. He said that if he has one piece of advice for people in a similar situation, it would be "Never give up, because 90 percent of it is in your mind."
WATCH a video fo Coleman Shannon, above, and a report about Duggan Smith, below:
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One-armed Little League pitcher hurls inspiring no-hitter, delivers key hits ...
Without a right arm, Johnsonville's Shannon overcomes the odds
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Posted: 05/06/2012 3:44 pm Updated: 05/06/2012 3:47 pm