{"id":271,"date":"2011-05-26T15:31:38","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T19:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/?p=271"},"modified":"2011-05-26T15:31:38","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T19:31:38","slug":"nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html","title":{"rendered":"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NFL rookie-to-be J.T. Thomas did something that made even the most cynical fans stand up and cheer. He took 14-year old Joslyn Levell, who was born with spina bifida, to her middle school prom in Morgantown, WV.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas, who is waiting along with other NFL draft picks for the lockout to end, met Levell while taking his autistic younger brother to school. Read more about this inspirational story <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/chicago\/bears\/post\/_\/id\/4670527\/bears-thomas-making-fans-dream-come-true\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NFL rookie-to-be J.T. Thomas did something that made even the most cynical fans stand up and cheer. He took 14-year old Joslyn Levell, who was born with spina bifida, to her middle school prom in Morgantown, WV. Thomas, who is waiting along with other NFL draft picks for the lockout to end, met Levell while&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[125,126,130,128,8,127,124,129],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news","tag-chicago-bears","tag-j-t-thomas","tag-joslyn-levell","tag-morgantown","tag-nfl","tag-prom","tag-spina-bifida","tag-west-virginia-university"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom - Inspiring Athletes<\/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\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NFL rookie-to-be J.T. Thomas did something that made even the most cynical fans stand up and cheer. He took 14-year old Joslyn Levell, who was born with spina bifida, to her middle school prom in Morgantown, WV. Thomas, who is waiting along with other NFL draft picks for the lockout to end, met Levell while&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-26T19:31:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chad Bonham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom - Inspiring Athletes","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\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom - Inspiring Athletes","og_description":"NFL rookie-to-be J.T. Thomas did something that made even the most cynical fans stand up and cheer. He took 14-year old Joslyn Levell, who was born with spina bifida, to her middle school prom in Morgantown, WV. Thomas, who is waiting along with other NFL draft picks for the lockout to end, met Levell while&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html","og_site_name":"Inspiring Athletes","article_published_time":"2011-05-26T19:31:38+00:00","author":"Chad Bonham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html","name":"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom - Inspiring Athletes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-26T19:31:38+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-26T19:31:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/05\/nfl-rookie-takes-fan-with-spina-bifida-to-middle-school-prom.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"NFL rookie takes fan with spina bifida to middle school prom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/","name":"Inspiring Athletes","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Chad Bonham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/?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\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1","name":"Chad Bonham","description":"Chad has been working in mass media for over 20 years. Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith &amp; Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}