He says it better than I or anyone else could ever write it.
Why is Alex Pring the latest recipient of the Sentinel’s Bill Buchalter Spirit Award that annually goes to a local athlete who has overcome immense obstacles in the pursuit of excellence?
Just read his words and you’ll understand.
“My parents have never allowed me to feel sorry for myself,” Pring says. “I am who I am because of the hard work I put into everything I do, from schoolwork to sports. There is only one me and I have to strive to be the best me that I can be.”
That “me” is a kid who was born with one arm, but has gone on to show everyone — his friends, family, coaches, teammates and opponents — that he has more elbow grease in his one arm than most of us have in two.
Pring, headed into his sophomore year at South Lake High School in Groveland, used dedication, determination, perseverance and persistence to become a starting linebacker on South Lake’s jayvee team and has gained the reputation as one of the hardest hitters in the area.
“Alex doesn’t look at himself as handicapped,” South Lake coach Brad Lord says. “He looks at himself as someone who wants to start on this team. He makes up for what he’s missing with his brain and his desire. He’s got a can-do attitude every day. Alex doesn’t quit and walk away from anything.”
As you might expect, Alex grew up a UCF fan and was inspired by former Knight linebacker Shaquem Griffin, who became a college star and an NFL player despite having his left hand amputated when he was 4 years old. “If Shaquem could do it, I figured I could do it, too,” Alex says.
But Alex has had to overcome even more than Shaquem did. Shaquem’s hand was amputated below the elbow, which gave him greater use of his left arm than Alex has with his right. Alex was born with a residual right arm that has no elbow and barely extends from his shoulder. When his mother, Alyson, was 5 months pregnant, she learned that the blood supply to Alex’s right arm had suddenly stopped and there was no definitive reason why.
Alyson and husband Steve were obviously scared because of the great unknown. Was their baby boy going to be OK? Would something else go wrong in the womb? Were there other medical issues? Would their son be able to do the things that other kids do?
Turns out Alex is doing more than the other kids do. He’s a straight-A student with a 4.25 GPA who wants to be an aerospace engineer someday. He’s taking online classes this summer so he can graduate from high school with two years of college credits already on his résumé.
He never takes the easy way out and overachieves in everything he does. He loves physical activity and it would have been much simpler for him to play soccer — a sport where your arms obviously aren’t nearly as important. But he grew up loving football and watching the family’s beloved Florida Gators on TV with his dad.
He tried flag football, but he wanted to play real football because, well, he wanted to hit people. Football has become his outlet; a way for him to release a lifetime full of pent-up frustrations.
When he first started playing the sport, he was reticent about hitting his teammates in practice until his father took him home one day and they watched Adam Sandler’s classic movie The Waterboy together. Sandler plays waterboy Bobby Boucher, a ridiculed social misfit who becomes the team’s star outside linebacker after the college coach instructs him to “visualize all of those people who’ve been mean to you and then attack.”
“I love that movie,” Alex says with a devious grin on his face.
“When you’ve had a bad day, there’s nothing like going out on the football field and hitting somebody,” he adds. “I’ll use anything and everything inside me — whether it be sadness or rage — to make myself better.”
What is it Dylan Thomas writes in his classic poem?
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Alex does rage when he is out on the football field. Like last season when he heard someone from the other team say that the “one-armed guy isn’t going to stop us.” The next play, he destroyed the opposing running back with a savage hit.
And, yes, he channels that inner rage toward all of those who have slighted him over the years. Like the girl he had a crush on who wouldn’t give him the time of day. Or just the other day at Chipotle, where oblivious parents allowed their little girl to keep pointing at Alex and staring … and staring … and staring at his missing arm. Or a few days ago behind him in the line at Walmart, there were those rude people who kept saying loud enough for him to hear, “look at his arm … look at his arm.”
“You get tired of it,” Alex says, “but you learn to live with it.”
However, it has taken more than that chip on his shoulder to make Alex what he is today. It’s taken a drive and dedication that too few young people have in a day and age where kids would rather play video games than real sports.
Alex refuses to make excuses or take shortcuts. When his teammates were in the weight room last season doing “power cleans” — an explosive barbell movement used by athletes to develop strength and power — Coach Lord tried to excuse Alex from the workout.
Replied Alex, “No, Coach, I’m going to do power cleans just like everybody else.” And, so, he taught himself a one-armed technique of squatting, lunging and lifting the weighted barbell over his head.
As he has become stronger and better at the technique, he’s now able to power clean 150 pounds. When his teammates tried to mimic him and do the exercise with one arm, they all failed miserably.
“He’s always giving off good vibes,” teammate Jason Lee says. “He’s always trying to lead and push the group. He’s always giving extra.”
Like last season when his mother had to wait in the parking lot for an extra 20 minutes after practice because the coach asked freshmen to volunteer to mop the floor of the locker room.
Most all of the other freshmen left, but Alex stayed and mopped because he wanted to live up to his coach’s mantra: “Work hard and be a team player even when nobody is watching.”
“I don’t know why, but there’s something inside of me that when I get coached to do something then I gotta do it,” Alex says. “I guess it’s just part of my make up.”
Perhaps unknowingly, Alex is a disciple of the great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, who once said, “It is your attitude, more than your aptitude, that will determine your altitude.”
He admits there are times when he wishes he has two arms, but there are more times when he feels thankful for how he was born and who he has become. He talks about how he has been able to experience some things other kids can only dream about. Like when he was 7 years old and received the first 3D printed robotic arm made by Limbitless Solutions — a UCF-based team of mechanical engineering students who volunteer to make “bionic” limbs for children at no cost to families.
Because Alex was such a superhero fan, Limbitless Solutions set up a meeting in which Alex personally met Iron Man — alias Tony Stark, alias actor Robert Downey Jr., who flew to Atlanta and made a YouTube video showing him presenting Alex with a bright red, Iron Man-styled 3D-printed bionic arm.
“Alex, the most dapper 7-year-old I’ve ever met,” Downey tweeted after the meeting with Alex back then.
And now Alex is one of the most dedicated 15-year-olds you’ll ever meet.
It was Ironman/Tony Stark himself who once said in the movie, “If you’re nothing without this suit then you shouldn’t have it.”
In other words, it’s not the costume that gives you your power; and it’s not your arms or your legs that turn you into an Ironman.
For Alex Pring, it’s who he is underneath — within his head and inside his heart — that makes him a superhero.
