Andy smiled as he and his field day team stepped up to their last activity. They were in first place, and Andy could already feel the medal around his neck.

“How exciting!” Mrs. Emory said. “You two teams are tied with the highest score of the day.”

“Tied?” Andy said. “But we beat them at the relay race.”

“Yes, but that was their only loss,” Mrs. Emory said. “Your team also has one loss, so you are both tied for first place.”

Andy crossed his arms in front of his chest. He didn’t want to think about the balloon toss (抛). He’d been the first one to drop his balloon.

“This event is a hula hoop(呼啦圈) challenge,” Mrs. Emory said, handing everyone a hula hoop.

“Are we supposed to see how far we can roll them?” Andy asked. “No. Your challenge is to hula hoop for as long as possible. Once your hoop hits the ground, you will be disqualified. The last person hula hooping will win the event for their team.”

Andy’s eyes widened. He’d never hula hooped before. He looked at the rest of his team. Becky seemed confident and so did Cory. They only needed one person to do well in order to win.

“Can we start?” asked Rachelle, the other team’s captain. She must have done this before because she was excited about the challenge.

Mrs. Emory blew her whistle. “Begin!” Andy watched Rachelle and mimicked everything she did. But no matter how hard he tried, the hoop wouldn’t stay up. It dropped and fell to his ankles. He stepped aside and cheered for Becky and Cory who were the only ones left to battle Rachelle.

Becky sneezed and her hoop fell to the ground. Andy grumbled, but he started cheering even louder for Cory. Andy stared at Rachelle. She looked so relaxed. Her team was chanting her name, and it took Andy a moment to realize Cory had dropped his hoop.

The challenge was over, and Rachelle had won, which meant Andy’s team had lost. But Andy couldn’t help cheering for Rachelle as she continued to hula hoop. Rachelle was still hula hooping when Mrs. Emory gave out the medals. Andy wore his second-place medal with pride as he congratulated Rachelle, the true field day champion.

When he did it, all 16 hours, 46 minutes and nine seconds of physical and psychological hell, his father told him: “You woke up this morning as a boy with Down syndrome. 【小题1】”

Chris Nikic. He’s 21.

He made the unrealistic his reality. 【小题2】 Last fall, he became the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman triathlon — a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.

Chris Nikic is not just an Ironman — he’s a superhero. “Since the race, we have received thousands and thousands of messages from people around the world who are inspired by his journey. 【小题3】 They have kids with special needs or Down syndrome. And so it’s touched Chris and touched us quite a lot.” said Chris’ father, Nik Nikic.

“【小题4】 Because he lets them use him as a mirror to look inwardly and say, ‘Look, if he can do so much with so little, what can I do with what I’ve got?’ It’s not about him — it’s about how he makes other people feel about themselves,” Nik Nikic said.

Chris Nikic’s story spread among the staff at Special Olympic Missouri. As explained by Brian Neuner, chief development and marketing officer, “【小题5】 And so, this was just an amazing example of where his ability was realized, even though he has a disability. We really focus on programs that are designed for helping people move forward and advance. Progress can be measured in so many different ways. Obviously, an Ironman, that’s an extreme achievement.”

“The Worthington Christian defeated the Westerville North by 2—1 in an Ohio boys’ soccer game on Saturday.” That’s according to a story that appeared last month in The Columbus Dispatch. That lead was written not by a sportswriter, but by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

Many news organizations are now examining how AI might be used in their work. But if they begin their “experimenting” with high school sports because they are less momentous than war, peace, climate change and politics, they may miss something crucial. Nothing may be more important to the students who play high school sports, and to their families, neighborhoods, and sometimes, the whole town. That next game is what the students train for, work toward, and dream about. Someday, almost all student athletes will go on to have jobs in front of screens, in office parks, at schools, in hospitals or on construction sites. They may suffer blows and setbacks. But the high school games they played and watched, as well as their hopes and cheers, will stay vivid in their memories.

I have a small idea. If newspapers will no longer send staff reporters to cover high school games, why not hire high school student journalists? News organizations can pay students an hourly wage to cover high school games. The young reporters might learn how to be fair to all sides, write vividly, and attract readers. That’s what some celebrities in sports did, and do.

And think of the great writers who were inspired by sports: Hemingway on fishing, Bernard Malamud and Marianne Moore on baseball, Chen Zhongshi on football, and CLR James on cricket, who said, “There can be raw pain and bleeding where so many thousands see the inevitable (不可避免的) ups and downs of only a game.” A good high school writer, unlike a robot, could tell readers not just the score, but the stories of the game.