Rising above — 3 prep athletes have turned obstacles into opportunities

Kids today. What are you going to do with them? What hope is there for this video game-addled, cell phone-addicted, saggy pants-wearing generation?

Take Porter Ellett, for instance. He's a total loser. President of his class at Wayne High School. President of his seminary class. An Eagle Scout. Plans to serve a mission for his church. Looks you in the eye when he talks to you. Clean-cut handsome. Competes on the school's basketball, track, cross country and baseball teams.

Oh, yeah, and he has only one arm. The other one was a nuisance, so he got rid it. When he was 4 years old, he fell out of a pickup truck. The resulting nerve damage left the arm hanging limply at his side. A couple of years ago, after breaking the arm a half-dozen times, he had it removed. ...

"I decided it would be less of a hassle just to have it amputated," he said.

A right-hander, he had to teach himself to be left-handed when he was a kid. He tucked the bat under his chin, tossed the ball in the air, grabbed the bat and swung at it. That's how he learned to hit a baseball. He took up four sports. "We don't have a football team or I would have done that, too, dang it," he says with a smile.

Porter practiced until blisters formed on his hands. "I didn't want people to think I was just some feel-good story sitting on the bench," he says.

Little League parents on the opposing team complained that he was going to get hurt; by the end of the game, they were complaining because he was beating them.

He was named the 1A Class baseball MVP last fall. He helped his team reach the state playoffs in basketball. He qualified for last weekend's state track and field championships in the 400- and 800-meter runs and the 4X400 relay.

He was asked to appear on "Good Morning America" last winter. He agreed but only if he could bring his basketball teammates with him. They were the reason he was successful, he said.

Kids, what are you going to do with them?

Take Mandy Rudd, the Hillcrest High School sprinter and hurdler, for instance. She's got rosy cheeks and pale green eyes and a smile that could cause global warming. An opposing coach said it best: "She glows." She's an A student and a National Honor Society member and an athlete on the Hillcrest basketball, volleyball and track teams.

Friends says that if someone is down or having a bad day, she seeks them out. Which is funny because she should be the one having the bad day. She's got cystic fibrosis, a gnarly inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive systems of about 30,000 in the U.S. A defective gene causes the body to produce a thick mucus that, among other things, clogs the lungs and leads to potentially lethal lung infections.

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