What Do You See?

What you do see in this photo, is DC United player (and just-that-day-named-member-of-the-All-Star-team to play Manchester United next month), Jaime Moreno, inscribing a ball to Samantha at his soccer camp last Monday. What you do see are the cameramen from Comcast Sportsnet trying to capture the sweet and touching scene on video to be broadcast that evening. What you do see is Samantha, in all her glorious cuteness, rocking the Puma.  One other thing you may see (other than the sweat pouring down our faces and soaking our shirts) is me, with my hands on my hips, looking peeved. “Why?” you may ask…well, because of the things you don’t see in this photo.

What you don’t see in this photo is that Moreno is sponsored by Addidas (a fact that he pointed out jokingly when admiring Sammi's outfit).  What you really don't see is Samantha being a right little terror. You don’t see her digging her heels into the ground, refusing to even acknowledge Jaime (with whom she has been very affectionate in the past), refusing to take the ball, refusing to thank him, refusing to kick a ball around with him or with Steve (after being so excited to go play soccer as we were leaving the house), and basically saying “No!” to anything that was said to her. You also don't see her pushing him away when he tried to move in for a hug (typical!).  Unfreakingbelievable. My little social butterfly, totally missing out on the golden opportunity to be the cute-little-girl-with-a-disability-interacting-with-soccer-star on tv. Okay, not too exploitative, right? But it would have been a very nice moment, had it gone as planned.

We left soon after to beat a coming storm (which thoroughly soaked us upon our arrival home). Thinking Samantha was sick, we took her temperature (normal) and gave her some Motrin, but she bounced back immediately and wanted to play as soon as we set foot back inside. Cheeky girl!

We caught the Sportsnet broadcast a little while later, and were relieved to see that they only included an interview with Jaime that they shot right after the Samantha fiasco, and not any of the other footage. I don’t think she would have done much for the Ds community and public awareness.  Oh well, there's always a next time...