Wednesday, April 12 is World Autism Awareness Day, and in celebration of the occasion, ESPN's NFL Live featured a set backdrop filled with drawings from Madden Orlovsky, the 12-year-old son of ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky, who has autism.
The idea of featuring Madden's drawings on World Autism Awareness Day came from the NFL Live production team, and clearly made the day of both Dan and Madden, who were able to look at the pictures together on set before they were featured on national television on Wednesday.
Dan Orlovsky was moved to tears during the show's open as he talked about Madden's "superpower" of drawing.
"Today is April 2nd it's World Autism Awareness Day," Orlovsky said. "I have an autistic son, he's actually here with us, named Madden. And his superpower is drawing. He loves art, he loves to draw animation, characters, and so today's studio is going to be..."
Orlovsky got choked up as he looked around at all of his son's artwork.
"The art of it is all decorated by Madden with all of his drawings."
After the crew showed a video of Madden looking at all of his drawings on the set before the show went live, the camera panned back to Dan.
"He's the man, he's the man."
It's a special edition of NFL Live today as @danorlovsky7's son, Madden, has his drawings on display throughout the studio to honor World Autism Awareness Day 🧩
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) April 2, 2025
Way to go, Madden! pic.twitter.com/VI958WTJfx
Good on ESPN to feature the artwork of Orlovsky on World Autism Awareness Day.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ESPN's 'NFL Live' Celebrates Autism Awareness Day With Pictures Drawn by Dan Orlovsky's Son.
