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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Logan Newman

Special needs student hits half-court shot during Arizona basketball game

Liberty High School’s (Peoria, Ariz.) first intramural basketball game with its Unified Program ended with a scene-stealing, crowd-rushing, half-court shot from the hands of a special needs student that fell into the hoop and sent the gymnasium into a frenzy.

Junior Tonatiuh Ramirez, who goes by “T,” made the shot from just past the half-court line in a crowd of defenders as the game came to an end. This game allows kids with disabilities and general education students to participate together in activities such as basketball, according to 12News.

The local station got a couple of angles of the shot, including this one below, posted to YouTube shorts:

“I do the best shot ever,” Ramirez said in an interview with the outlet. “The crowd and everything, it was amazing.”

It was a moment that T and the crowd will likely never forget, something teacher Jessi Wilks hoped to promote in her work with the Unified Program.

“There’s a lot of things you can’t teach in classrooms,” she said to 12News. “You can’t necessarily teach acceptance, you can’t teach inclusion all the time– but you teach through experiences.”

T’s mother, Rocio Ramirez, told the outlet that he wants to be a professional basketball player when he grows up.

If he keeps channeling his inner LaMelo Ball, or Damian Lillard, or Steph Curry, we may get to see him in more impressive moments.

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