GREAT FALLS — At Tuesday night's Shrine Game practice session for the East team at Memorial Stadium, an honorary teammate and patient of the Shriners Children's hospital in Spokane, Wash., joined the squad for one play.
Parker Shirley, who is 4 years old, took the ball up the middle and ran it to the end zone escorted by all the players from East.
"Parker really enjoys these events," his father, Mike, said. "Playing with the boys, practicing with them and helping to raise money."
Mike and Parker's mother, Nikki, explained why Shriners is so impactful to their son and family.
"The hospital took his feet from being completely backwards and rotated them forward," Mike said. "This game represents a lot to him and the patients at the hospital because they give so much care to children of this community and many other communities at no cost to the families."
WATCH THE VIDEO:
Now, Parker was able to score a touchdown at Tuesday's practice and exchange all sorts of high-fives with the players, making it feel like he was a teammate.
"It's actually heartwarming," Mike said. "We told (the team) the story about Parker and his journey through the children's hospital in Spokane. They always seem to embrace him and they enjoy playing with him and he's almost part of the team."
"We appreciate them being willing to kind of take him in as their own," Nikki said.
Although, before Parker could walk and run on his own, Mike and Nikki said there was some uncertainty.
"First worry when he came out was he's never going to walk — like, we thought he was going to be wheelchair bound," Nikki said. "It's been a really kind of cool experience to watch what they have been able to do and for it to be provided free of charge."
"We bounced around from doctor to doctor here in town, nobody could tell us what was wrong or if it was even correctable, if it could be fixed," Mike said. "Once we finally got a referral to Shriners, we got a path forward. And now he is playing sports. He plays soccer and baseball and probably at some point football."
The Shirleys said they will not be able to attend Saturday's game, but Parker made sure to let the players know who he's cheering for: "Go East!"
