{"id":4029,"date":"2019-11-13T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=4029"},"modified":"2019-11-13T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T15:30:00","slug":"high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html","title":{"rendered":"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/szCqNq_Jkqc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Two rival high school football players bonded in a moment only God could have facilitated \u2013 through prayer on the field.<\/p>\n<p>Texas high school football players Gage Smith and Ty Jordan were pictured kneeling down together in prayer following the game between Sherman and Mesquite High \u2013 their respective schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was meant for just me and him to have a moment and to pray over his family and for his mom,&#8221; Smith told TODAY. \u201cI just wanted to let him know there are other people thinking about him and his family, and let him know he has somebody to turn to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The wife of Smith\u2019s head coach took a picture of the faith-filled moment and passed it on to Jordan\u2019s aunt Takka. She later posted the photo that went viral.<\/p>\n<p>ABC News 8 reported that the photo received more than 140,000 shares before Takka removed it from public view.<\/p>\n<p>Many people praised Smith for his compassionate act including his coach, who also called him a true leader.<\/p>\n<p>Smith reportedly asked Jordan if he could pray with him after learning that his mother had stage 4 lung cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Smith was blown away that the photo had gotten so much attention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo see that it blew up I was very surprised by it, and I wasn\u2019t expecting it to be like that you know, I was just doing it for him and doing it for his mom and his family,\u201d Smith told ABC News 8.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan\u2019s mother, who is currently battling cancer, told TODAY that seeing the photo of that special moment made her \u201cspeechless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It made me cry,\u201d She continued, \u201c[Smith] didn&#8217;t have to do that. The fact that he took the time to pray with Ty for me, that took my breath away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Smith just wanted to show his opponent respect.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would&#8217;ve done that whether we would&#8217;ve won or lost,&#8221; Smith said. &#8220;During the game we&#8217;re enemies and we&#8217;re gonna play and try to win the game, but you still have that respect for the other opponent. I wanted to do that for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prayer really has no limits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two rival high school football players bonded in a moment only God could have facilitated \u2013 through prayer on the field. Texas high school football players Gage Smith and Ty Jordan were pictured kneeling down together in prayer following the game between Sherman and Mesquite High \u2013 their respective schools. \u201cIt was meant for just&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[581,90,476,1087,231],"class_list":["post-4029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiring-people","tag-cancer","tag-faith","tag-football","tag-inspiring-moments","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two rival high school football players bonded in a moment only God could have facilitated \u2013 through prayer on the field. Texas high school football players Gage Smith and Ty Jordan were pictured kneeling down together in prayer following the game between Sherman and Mesquite High \u2013 their respective schools. \u201cIt was meant for just&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-13T15:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lesli White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer","og_description":"Two rival high school football players bonded in a moment only God could have facilitated \u2013 through prayer on the field. Texas high school football players Gage Smith and Ty Jordan were pictured kneeling down together in prayer following the game between Sherman and Mesquite High \u2013 their respective schools. \u201cIt was meant for just&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration Report","article_published_time":"2019-11-13T15:30:00+00:00","author":"Lesli White","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html","name":"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-11-13T15:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-13T15:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/4f72f240cbc397de345b4a72c0109413"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/11\/high-school-football-player-shows-compassion-prays-opponent-whose-mom-cancer.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"High School Football Player Shows Compassion, Prays With Opponent Whose Mom Has Cancer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/","name":"Inspiration Report","description":"Inspiration News, Life Advice and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/4f72f240cbc397de345b4a72c0109413","name":"Lesli White","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/849\/84981da9ba200c133618a7ef53be589dx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/849\/84981da9ba200c133618a7ef53be589dx96.jpg","caption":"Lesli White"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/author\/lwhite"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/565"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4032,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions\/4032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}