Watch a high school player with cerebral palsy score an 80-yard touchdown in Missouri

PJ Allred, a high school football player in Missouri with cerebral palsy, made the most of his first chance to play under the Friday night lights.

The Smith-Cotton High School senior took a hand-off and ran for an 80-yard touchdown last week, scoring his team’s only points against Hickman High School in Columbia, the Columbia Missourian reported.

Video shows Allred run past defenders and dive past the goal line before members of both teams joined to congratulate him in the endzone.

“This is the first time he’s been on the field and it worked out,” Smith-Cotton head coach Charlie McFail told the newspaper. “It was neat to see Hickman and Smith-Cotton come together at the end of it and hang with each other down there.”

The play also made ESPN’s Top 10 plays on SportsCenter.

The long touchdown run didn’t come without hard work, McFail told USA Today.

“He has practiced everyday, lifted weights all summer, and attended summer 7-on-7 sessions and team camps,” McFail told USA Today. “He has been a full participant in the program.”

McFail said the team didn’t plan for Allred to get in the game and “it just came up in the moment,” according to USA Today.

Hickman High School head coach Cedric Alvis said he was proud watching all the players and cheerleaders from both teams run down the sidelines to celebrate, KMIZ reported.

“The actual win was meaningless at that point,” Alvis told KMIZ. “The fact that PJ got that moment and everyone could celebrate, that was the most important thing.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Watch a high school player with cerebral palsy score an 80-yard touchdown in Missouri."