I watched in amazement a news report on msnbc.com today. Here was this tall boy with one arm playing basketball with the two-armed guy (Shruster?) and scoring effortlessly.

The tall guy (6’ 11”), it turned out, is Kevin Laue, is from Pleasanton, CA. He is a freshman at Manhattan College, having earned a scholarship to play basketball. He will be on the team of Manhattan Jaspers.

I don’t have to tell you of the rough roads students travel to step into college and onto the courts to play in NCAA Division I tournaments. Kevin’s story becomes inspirational as his odds were more than what you would expect in the face of severe competition.

Kevin is living a life that many kids with physical disability (his left arm extends upto below his elbow) just dream about.

Kevin can do all the stuff needed on court – dribble, pass, block, score, possess the ball on rebound, slam-dunk. When the season opens for Jaspers on November 14, what will it be like to come to the floor to play against his two-handed opponents? He thinks it is an advantage since they might underestimate his skills. “They think they’re going to have an easy game and just whip on some one-handed kid. But I think I’ve surprised a couple people out there.”

Ha, that will be one to watch. His opponents’ faces when he leaves them stranded on their post, when he jump steals the shot as well as the show from right under their noses, with just one arm. By the way, Kevin made his regular season college basketball debut in Manhattan’s 70-58 victory over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday at Draddy Gymnasium.

According to reports, he was off the bench for the final 2 minutes 55 seconds of the first half and was credited with one offensive rebound. He missed his only field-goal attempt and his only two free-throw attempts before sitting the entire second half. “I was happy to be out there, but I wasn’t nervous,” he said.