Scott Park took one dribble, he took two steps and let it fly, a half-court shot for one million dollars … and the feeble, low-arcing attempt barely made it to the free-throw line.
The crowd in Greensboro, NC, watching during halftime of last Friday’s ACC Tournament semifinal between Notre Dame and Duke, groaned. Millions who saw the Vine blooper video in the days to come likely laughed out loud.
Park, an NC State fan on an all-expenses-paid trip with his wife, Ellen, simply smiled. You see, the 56-year-old environmental engineer for the Navy knew his shot wasn’t going in, not after the heart surgery, the diagnosis of a rare blood disease, the kidney transplant, the treatments. He was happy just be alive. Who could be bummed about a pathetic basketball heave?
“Unless God intervened and put wings on the ball, I was only going to get it part way,” Park told the Sporting News.
Park experienced mysterious, life-threatening complications after a planned open heart surgery in 2007.
“I had five organs starting to shut down: my kidney, liver, spleen, gallbladder, pancreas,” he said. “They were scratching their heads, the doctors, because they couldn’t figure it out.”
It was weeks before he was diagnosed with one of 400 documented cases of the blood disorder Catastrophic Antiphospholipid Syndrome (CAPS). When he received a kidney from a member of his church who was a perfect match, it was a medical miracle worthy of documentation in the New England Journal of Medicine: the first CAPS patient to receive a transplant.
Now his recovery includes a regimen of 39 pills per day and every-other-week infusions of an experimental drug in Baltimore, a five-hour drive from his home in Virginia Beach. The big basketball fan skipped last Friday’s session for the junket to the ACC tourney, only to wind up an Internet punchline. Forgive him if he scarcely seems to mind.
“I don’t have any problem with it being out there. I would probably want to see it myself, like any of us would,” Park said.
“The Lord has blessed me probably as much or more than a lot of people. I feel that every day.”