Young athlete shows he has the right stuff

Every once in awhile, someone comes along who restores faith.

The best part about this, they live the miracle every day, and they don’t have a clue of their impact, their ability to inspire others.

Hunter Jordan is that kind of person.

Hunter, 11, is a child with a handicap, but don’t tell him that because he knows — and does — he can do everything any other child his age does. He was born with half a left arm. His mother developed amniotic banding, a symptom in which tissue wrapped itself around his left arm in the womb and, essentially, cut off blood supply and development of his arm.

The Western News caught up with Hunter during one of his league baseball games. Playing for Larson Lumber of Troy, Hunter plays first base, second base and pitches.

“Yes,” when asked whether he played his position well.  “I’m good at pitching and first base.”

Like a lot of 11-year-olds, Hunter would rather play the game than talk about it.

“No, I don’t feel like I have a handicap,” he said. “I feel like I can do anything any other boy can do.”

When pitching, Hunter tucks his glove under his left arm and delivers the pitch with his right, then quickly puts his glove on his hand so he can be ready to field his position.

    Sensing the brevity of Hunter’s responses, Danita Jordan offered more.

   “He seems just as quick as the other boys are,” she said. “When he said he wanted to play, he just vowed to play. There’s no stopping him.”

   “Stopping him” is not something anyone has tried, most notably his teammates.

   “They really encourage me,” Hunter said. “They’ve been really good. I think they see that I can do things that even boys with two hands don’t do.”

   For all intents, Hunter is a normal child, and sometimes his mother admits she thinks of him as such.

   “I have never treated him any differently. There are times I’ll tell him, for example, he needs to clean his room, and I’ll say, ‘Hunter clean your room.’ He tells me he really doesn’t want to, and I’ll say, ‘Come on. You’ve got two hands, clean your room.’ He’ll tell me, ‘Mom, I don’t.’

   “I just don’t think of him as handicapped,” said Danita, who has two other children Gunner, 16, and Cheyenne, 13.

   When those instances arise when Hunter needs a lift, she recalled what she tells her son, a Morrison Elementary School student: “Sometimes God needs a hand, and he’s using Hunter’s.”

   The Jordans are involved with Hunter and his activities.

   “I coached his peewee baseball team,” Danita said. “While I did that, my husband (Jay) worked with Hunter,” she said.

   When teammates saw Hunter’s ability, they were astonished.

   “Some of them even tried to hit like he does, with one arm,” Danita Jordan said. “Rules won’t allow that. It says if you have two hands both have to be on the bat.”

   Hunter stands squarely in the batter’s box and then pivots and gets a full, one-handed swing at pitches.

   “He hits about 80 percent,” Danita said of his nearly .800 batting average.”

   “I think they know I can play,” Hunter added.

   “I tell them I do my best and if people doubt me, I just work to show them wrong,” Hunter said.