Leave it to a sports award show to recognize what a real fighter looks like.
ESPN’s annual award show (the ESPYs) honored 15 year-old Jarrius Robertson last week with the Jimmy V Perseverance Award for his advocacy – and his all-around coolness.
Jarrius is living with biliary atresia, a rare and life-threatening condition in which the bile ducts for the liver do not have normal openings. Bile is a fluid made by the liver that carries toxins and waste products out of the body and helps the body digest fats and absorb the vitamins.
Jarrius was diagnosed within weeks of his birth and was even in a coma for a year. He has been through several surgeries and despite his stunted statured – his personality his outsized.
Which brings us to why he was honored at the 2017 ESPYs and counts John Cena, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and more among his friends.
Jarrius hasn’t let his condition stop from him enjoying his life and hobbies – and sports is a major one. He is a New Orleans Saints superfan and during a Saints visit to the children’s hospital he was being treated at, Jarrius stole the show – and hearts – with his signature personality; all captured here.
It didn’t take long for the sports world to become enamored with the courage, perseverance, and swagger.
Jarrius became a fixture on ESPN and sports media – embodying the spirit of a fighter who is out to live his best life, despite any and all obstacles.
So it was no surprise ESPN honored this spitfire with an award that celebrates the quality that not only makes a good athlete great – but a good human even greater.
And it doesn’t hurt that the kid does it all with STYLE.
Anyone who can inspire some of the most impressive, physical competitors in the world certainly is worthy of our attention.
Check out Jarrius’s speech and more about him here.
