{"id":109415,"date":"2015-09-17T01:19:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T07:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-honors-nearly-blind-player-with-a-touchdown\/"},"modified":"2015-09-17T01:19:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T07:19:26","slug":"dolores-honors-nearly-blind-player-with-a-touchdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-honors-nearly-blind-player-with-a-touchdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores honors nearly blind player with a touchdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=1913c259-932d-4f90-9ee4-619cc9d3d9ae&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=1913c259-932d-4f90-9ee4-619cc9d3d9ae&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=1913c259-932d-4f90-9ee4-619cc9d3d9ae&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=1913c259-932d-4f90-9ee4-619cc9d3d9ae&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"1796\" height=\"1296\" alt=\"Jardyn Angell\/Dolores Star&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Monument Valley senior Avery Black smiles after Friday\u2019s game, in which he had a 50-yard rushing touchdown.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Jardyn Angell\/Dolores Star&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Monument Valley senior Avery Black smiles after Friday\u2019s game, in which he had a 50-yard rushing touchdown.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/un2diJFIoH4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The biggest offensive play for the Monument Valley Cougars in their 62-6 loss to Dolores last Friday came from an unlikely source.<\/p>\n<p>His name is Avery Black. The Monument Valley senior is playing football for just his second year, and he rarely gets playing time. He is nearly blind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has a degenerative disease in both eyes,\u201d explained Monument Valley head coach Jim Dandy. \u201cLast year, they found out he was going to go totally blind. He still has tunnel vision, but his peripherals are pretty much gone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With about six minutes left and trailing 55-0 with the ball on the 50, Black came in at running back.<\/p>\n<p>Taking the snap, the quarterback placed the ball in Black\u2019s hands, and he took off toward the left sideline.<\/p>\n<p>Cradling the ball in his arms, he turned the corner and headed upfield.<\/p>\n<p>The Bears stood down.<\/p>\n<p>Some defenders mimicked being blocked or attempting a slow pursuit.<\/p>\n<p>And some simply watched him run and shouted encouragement.<\/p>\n<p>Some Monument Valley players stood in front of Dolores players and blocked at half-speed.<\/p>\n<p>And some ran behind or alongside their teammate as he ran 50 yards  for Monument Valley\u2019s first and only score.<\/p>\n<p>But when Black reached the end zone and turned around \u2013 raising the ball above his head in celebration \u2013 he was greeted by players from both teams who congratulated him on his touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>One of the first to pat him on the shoulder pads and commend him was Dolores junior Tristen Medina \u2013 who had helped put the plan in motion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Coach Dandy) said something to Tristen Medina, who is one of our team captains,\u201d Dolores head coach Chris Trusler said. \u201cTristen was lined up as the far side cornerback on their side of the field and the coach just mentioned it to Tristen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year, a couple of schools were great about having that touchdown,\u201d said Cougars coach Dandy. \u201cI had kind of gotten to know the (Dolores) coach earlier, but I didn\u2019t mention it to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just told one of their captains to see if he would be doing it,\u201d Dandy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTristen ran over and let me know what they had going on, so we called a timeout,\u201d Trusler said. \u201cAnd you know, that was a special touchdown run for their program and for that kid and his family, so we felt good being a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Black was beaming on the sideline afterward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt felt great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if it was his first touchdown, he replied, \u201cYeah, for this season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His grin suggested that he plans to score again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dolores leaves goal open for ailing opponent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21,44,13,295,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-water","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109415"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}