Bismarck Lions Teamwork Challenge Entry

The Bismarck Lions submitted a video and the essay below to our teamwork challenge:

My name is C.J. Fertig. I am a senior Bismarck football player, and I think my team is special for the following reasons. We have had extreme changes in our team from our new coaching staff to a very special teammate that we have been gifted with this year, a new kicker, named Josh Newsom. Josh is a senior here at Bismarck and is a very spirited member of our football team. He has more heart than most people I know and cares as much about this team as those of us who have been at Bismarck when our team only had seven players. To us, Josh is just part of the team. The only difference is that Josh has Down Syndrome, and yet the team treats him like everyone else because the guys on this team are the most loving teammates I have ever had the honor of playing with. They would go out of their way on and off of the field to help out someone of our community.
They are hard-working and very smart. We only had three weeks this summer to learn an entire new style of football before our first game. And, they allow Josh to have a chance to play in the game, because as a team, our goal every game has been to get up enough to allow Josh to go out on the field and kick off because no one deserves to play more than him, but in order to do so, the team had to go through some hard work.
Not every game we have played this year has ended well. We have worked hard and never given up; we have fought back from being down at the half to just keeping it close. It takes a lot of heart to do this, to play even when you don’t think you can win when you’re down by 14 points at the half, and you come back at the half and do whatever it takes to win and bring the game within 7 points. You have to trust that the others will do their jobs every down so we can let Josh loose on the field!
I think ultimately our team is special because we play for something we all believe in, something that every one will do whatever it takes to accomplish, something that, no matter what, you can count on the team to play their hearts out to give Josh his time on the field.. Because of the fact that these guys will give all they’ve got for this team, I think that makes us special.