This youtube video and internet article are very moving tributes to a special family and their son with Down syndrome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uUVez3kNcI
Among several lasting memories of John Mark Stallings, one always stands out
in my mind.
It was moments after the University of Alabama football team had soundly beaten Miami
in New Orleans, clinching the 1992 national championship.
Before he went to meet the national media, Alabama head coach Gene
Stallings, always a friend to local reporters, slipped into a small room
deep beneath the Superdome to speak briefly to me and to Charles Hollis, the
Birmingham News' beat reporter at the time.
Amid the massive celebration that still echoed in the stadium, that tiny
cubicle contained only the coach (still a little damp from the Gatorade bath
he was given by his players), Larry White of the UA sports information
staff, Hollis, myself - and the person who put it all in perspective: John
Mark Stallings.
All sorts of grandiose descriptions of Alabama's achievement were running
through my brain as I prepared to describe the epochal victory. But it was
John Mark who saw it all in its proper light and summed it up in four words
- 'Way to go, Pop.'
More than anything I could have said, that summed up the entire journey from
Stallings' hiring and the tumultuous 1990 season, through all the patient
building process that constructed the awesome defense that swamped the
Hurricanes . So much can go wrong on the way to a national title. Stallings
had managed to guide Alabama past every pitfall.
John Mark Stallings wouldn't have expressed it in that way, but he
understood. It was a job well done. Alabama had won, which was the way he
wanted things to be in his world, and his father, of whom he was justifiably
proud, had guided the team there, as John Mark knew that he would.
John Mark Stallings, who passed away at 7:28 a.m. Saturday, always provided
that kind of insight. In a way, his whole life - his great gift - was in
teaching people to look at their circumstances in a different way.
That was certainly a theme in his relationship with his famous father. I
wouldn't say that was the entire relationship, because who can sum up all
that exists between a father and a son? But it is true that, just as Gene
Stallings taught and nurtured John Mark, then John Mark Stallings brought
out and developed the human side of his father as no one else could have.
Imagine being Gene Stallings in 1962, a fiery, motivated young football
coach on Paul W. 'Bear' Bryant's staff. Toughness was in every fiber of
Stallings, the sort of toughness that helped him survive the famous trip to
Junction as a Texas A&M player, the kind that made Bryant want to have him
on hand as a member of his staff when other, more experienced coaches were
available.
Junction had been a test. Playing for 'Bear' Bryant had been a test. But
those tests were nothing compared to the crucible that Stallings and his
wife Ruth Ann, neither of them yet 30 years old, were to face that year.
That's when they learned that their infant son had been born with Down
syndrome.
What emotions would someone feel at such a time? Anger, at the random
unfairness of such a fate? Disappointment, knowing that the child would
never play football or become a coach or fulfill those dreams?
But, in perhaps his greatest moment, greater than coming out of Junction in
one piece, or leading Texas A&M to a Cotton Bowl, or taking Alabama to a
national championship, Gene Stallings put anger and bitterness aside. He
embraced the challenge of raising his son. And what rewards he received for
it, what lessons he learned.
Years later, Stallings would talk about watching John Mark struggle for
every triumph, the effort it took for his boy to master even simple tasks.
It made the coach appreciate the player who worked harder, even if he had
less ability. It made him reach out to so many young people whose lives are
better today because of the Stallings Center (which houses the Rise program
for disabled children at UA) or simply because the head coach at Alabama
took the time to visit their hospital bed, or host them and their family at
a practice.
In that way, as Mal Moore said on Saturday afternoon, 'John Mark Stallings
touched every Alabama fan. The child who, it was thought, could never do
great things did them after all, with his gentle nature and warm smile. Most
of all, he did great things with his complete, unquestioning capacity to
love his family, to love Alabama and to love everyone who shared those
feelings with him in the short 46 years of his life.'
