SAN ANTONIO — The scoreboard ꦇdoesn’t always tell you w💞ho the champions are.
The Michigan Wolverines are the ones who have brought joy and inspir🃏ation to a 12-year-old boy wh🌱o has endured 10 surgeries. They are the ones who have welcomed him with open arms and hearts, and adopted him as one of their own.
And Jude S𓄧tamper has given back joy and inspiration.
Life lessons taught and learned for both sides.
The Littlest Wolverine is a symbol of perseverance, resilience and hope for all of us in life’s survive-and-advance tournament. Team Impact, a nonprofit organization that arranges unions between children with serious illnesses and compassionate college sports teams, matched him with the Wolverines on Nov. 6, the day he signed his letter of intent at Crisler Arena … the beginning of a magical personal journey that has taken him to the West Region Sweet 16 in Los Angeles and the Alamodome for the Final Four and championship game Monday night against Villanova.
Jude happened to grow up a Michigan fan in Monroe, Mich., and this has been the time of his life — an honorary Michigan Wolverine, a true fighter who has stolen the h𒊎eart of Coach John Beilein and evಌeryone who meets him — a life spent battling Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (decreased mobility of his joints), Escobar syndrome (a rare disorder that results in webbing of the skin around the joints) and Prune Belly syndrome (an absence of abdominal muscles).
He was sitting in his wheelchair on Monday afternoon 🍸inside the Michigan team hotel, wearing his Michigan hat and Michigan Final Four T-shirt and a smile that wasn’t eager to leave his cherubic face. Soon he would be eating with the team at the pregame meal, and in seven hours, he would be seated across from the Michigan bench in a spot where he would high-five his fellow Wolverine teammates as they emerged from the tunnel.
“I knew we’d probably get this far,” Jude said.
What would he tell them at the pregame meal? “Just tell ’em like, ‘Good luck, play their best, forﷺget the rest,’ ” Jude said.
C’mon, I tell hi🍒m, you gotta be m𒁏ore fiery than that.
“I don’t want to get ’em too up and have too much pressure on their shoulders,”ꦡ Jude said.
“It’s just a game, so … if they can get it done, that’s great, if they can’t, it’s OK.”
He was back home at a friend’s basement when Jordan Poole kept Michigan alive with that buzzer-beater against Houston.
“I was like screaming,” Jude said. And when Pool꧃e began running around the court so his teammates could not catch him?
“I was laughing really🌳 hard, I thought it was hilarious,” Jude said.
He l🗹aughs out loud at the mention of his father, Naꩲte, calling him a pseudo-celebrity.
“I usually take pictures with people, but that’sꩵ as far as it goes, so that’s pretty cool,” Jude said. Asked if he could ever imagine this happening to him, Jude laughed and said, “No.”
The boy never said, ‘Why me?’ Somehow, some way, he has grown up to be a glass-half-full seventh-gra💎der.
I asked him to describe what it’s been like being him and having to overcome all he’s had to overcome, and he says: “Um, it’s pretty great. I mean, I get to have an opportunity like this, and I get to watch sports as a fan, that’s pretty cool. Obviously I would like to play sports, but since I’m with this team I also learned a lot of othe🧸r things about basketball.”
So it’s꧃ turned out to be a pretty good life after all, 𝄹hasn’t it?
“Yeah, for sure,” Jude said, and smiled. “I’m only 12, so …”
I te💖ll him that some kids would strugg🐎le with things that he has gone through and ask him what gets him through all of it.
“Just having a posit𒁃ive attitude about things,” Jude said.
Did you ever say, “Why me?” or anything like that?
“No,” Jude said, “I’m just grateful.”
He developed his affection for Michigan after his ꦜearly surgeries at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital i💖n Ann Arbor. “And my dad was a big Michigan fan, so I’d watch the football games with him,” Jude said.
His father smiled and said: “He bleeds blue.”
Jude has struck up a friendship with Michigan star ♑big ma🌺n Mo Wagner, among others.
“Everything he’s been through, he always has a smile on his face,” Wagner said. “He really be🌼lieves in us. He’s a great kid. Gives you perspective, for sure.”
Jude hopes to aꦦttend Michigan and be a sports agent one day.
“I think I’d be able to help out th♌e players with their game, and like managing things,” Jude said.
Nate interjected: “It’s funny, o♍ne of Jude’s orthopedic specialists at C.S. Mott Hospital, after he met Jude he said, ‘Jude could talk a curvy line straight.’ ”
He has always been that way.
“Jude wasn’t able to walk until he was about 4, 4 ¹/₂,” Nate said. “Part of his syndrome is his abdominal muscles are underdeveloped. Because of that, it’s created sort of a dynamic from a p⛦arenting perspective where he would just use his mouth to get whatever he wanted. So he’s been talking in full senten✨ces since he was about 14 months old.”
He can walk short distances with a walker, and Jude, with his father’s help, gets up and walks a tiny bit. Nate, who is in software sales, and wifeꦬ, Courtney, have four children. Nate is asked to dౠescribe Jude’s personality.
“He is born with a confidence, but it’s not a cockiness,” he said. “He’s a humble kid. He has a reverence for things that are important. And very intelligent. His social I.Q. is very high. His E.Q. is extremely high. All-arouꩵnd he’s a good kid. And very honest. As honest as it gets.”
I told the father that Jude꧒ inspires me, and he said: “Me too. Every day.”
I asked Jude what he has learned about life itself. He ♊laughs as he processes the thought before it comes to him:
“That there’s hope.”