INTRODUCES US TO GAVIN FOR WE LEARNED ABOUT AS QUICKLY THAT GAVIN FORD DOES NOT LIVE IN ORDINARY LIFE. AS WE LEARNED THAT GAVIN FORD IS AN EXTRAORDINARY KID. I’M LIKE ANYBODY ELSE. I DON’T WANT YOU TO TREAT ME DIFFERENTLY. HE WAS THE FIRST KID TO PLAY IN THE LITTLE LEAGUE MAJORS IN A WHEELCHAIR IN HIS HOMETOWN OF NORTH REDDING. FUNNY STORY, ACTUALLY. MY FIRST AT BAT. FIRST PITCH, I GOT HIT RIGHT IN THE NECK. JUST THE FASTBALL RIGHT TO THE NECK. AND I WAS KIND OF A WELCOME. YOU’RE HERE. IT’S AMAZING THAT HE’S HERE. BORN WITH SPINA BIFIDA, A NEURAL DEFECT OF THE SPINE. HE USES EVERY OUNCE OF ENERGY TO DO ALL THE THINGS HE LOVES TO DO THROUGH ADAPTIVE BASKETBALL IN LACROSSE, SURFING AND BASEBALL, AND HIS FAVORITE SLED HOCKEY. GAVIN IS A 15 YEAR OLD ATHLETE IN SPITE OF YEARS OF SURGERIES AND MONTHS SPENT AWAY FROM RINKS IN COURTS. AND IN 2020, TWO OUT OF 365 DAYS OF THE YEAR, GAVIN WAS BEDBOUND FOR 192 OF THEM. STILL, HE HOPES ONE DAY TO MAKE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE PARALYMPICS. BUT HIS GOALS DON’T END THERE. I LEARNED ENGINEERING ALL THIS YEAR. I WANT TO BE AN ARCHITECT. THAT’S MY DREAM JOB. NOT EVERY BUILDING IS ACCESSIBLE, SO I DON’T REALLY WANT THAT TO BE A STRUGGLE FOR ANYBODY BECAUSE I KNOW I HAVE TO STRUGGLE WITH THAT. HE’S AMAZING, BUT WHAT I REALLY RESPECT IS HIS WILLINGNESS TO SHARE HIS OPPORTUNITY FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS. SO WHY DO WE DECIDE TO INTRODUCE YOU TO GAVIN FORD TODAY? BECAUSE KIDS LIKE GAVIN ARE NOT JUST HERE TO INSPIRE OTHER KIDS LIKE GAVIN. THEY’RE HERE TO SHOW THE REST OF THE WORLD HOW TO LIVE IN NORTH ANDOVER JOSH BROGADIR WHY WCVB SPORTSCENTER 5? WELL PUT.

15-year-old para-athlete in Massachusetts inspiring others with his ability

Updated: 5:46 AM EDT Jun 21, 2023

Gavin Ford insists on not being treated any differently, despite the extraordinary para-athlete living a life that is anything but ordinary.Ford was the first kid in his hometown of North Reading, Massachusetts, to play in the Little League majors division while in a wheelchair."Funny story, actually. My first at bat, first pitch, I got hit right in the neck. Just a fastball right to the neck and I was kind of like: 'Welcome, you're here,'" Ford said while smiling and chuckling.Born with spina bifida, a neurological birth defect in which an area of the spinal column doesn't form properly, Gavin uses every ounce of energy in order to do all of the things he loves to do. He is able to participate in a number of sports from adaptive basketball and lacrosse to surfing and baseball, and his favorite, sled ice hockey. That is all despite years of surgeries and months away from fields, rinks, courts and the ocean."In 2022, out of 365 days of the year, Gavin was bed-bound for 192 of them," said Jen Ford, Gavin's mother.Gavin hopes one day to participate in the Paralympics, but he also has an even more altruistic goal."I learned engineering all this year. I want to be an architect. That's my dream job," Gavin said. "Not every building is accessible, so I don't really want that to be a struggle for anybody because I know I have to struggle with that.""He's amazing, but what I really respect is his willingness to share his opportunity for the benefit of others," Jen Ford said.

Gavin Ford insists on not being treated any differently, despite the extraordinary para-athlete living a life that is anything but ordinary.

Ford was the first kid in his hometown of North Reading, Massachusetts, to play in the Little League majors division while in a wheelchair.

"Funny story, actually. My first at bat, first pitch, I got hit right in the neck. Just a fastball right to the neck and I was kind of like: 'Welcome, you're here,'" Ford said while smiling and chuckling.

Born with spina bifida, a neurological birth defect in which an area of the spinal column doesn't form properly, Gavin uses every ounce of energy in order to do all of the things he loves to do. He is able to participate in a number of sports from adaptive basketball and lacrosse to surfing and baseball, and his favorite, sled ice hockey. That is all despite years of surgeries and months away from fields, rinks, courts and the ocean.

"In 2022, out of 365 days of the year, Gavin was bed-bound for 192 of them," said Jen Ford, Gavin's mother.

Gavin hopes one day to participate in the Paralympics, but he also has an even more altruistic goal.

"I learned engineering all this year. I want to be an architect. That's my dream job," Gavin said. "Not every building is accessible, so I don't really want that to be a struggle for anybody because I know I have to struggle with that."

"He's amazing, but what I really respect is his willingness to share his opportunity for the benefit of others," Jen Ford said.

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carter duly schlepps his surfboard across knee high snow drifts and ice to the beach in brigantine. Today's a snow day from school for carter. But when it comes to this 10 year old and surfing, there's no such thing as a day off. When Covid sent the state into lockdown in 2020 carter vowed to keep busy by surfing every day. He's kept at it now for 590 days straight. So what, what makes you keep coming out here trying to keep the streak alive? I guess covert because there's nothing to do and since you're here, why don't I just keep doing it? It's fun and I got all these great things from doing it. So I guess I'll just keep doing it. The streak has earned carter notoriety through news coverage and social media and that's translated into some free gear and the ability to pay it forward. He's raised money for a local animal rescue and collected food for a local soup kitchen. His mom, Dawn is the driver and support staff helps make sure the streak stays alive. At first, the goal was 100 days then a year. Every time he reaches a milestone it gets bumped up. Now carter's shooting for 1000 days as any parent knows, time goes too fast and dawn knows these moments are precious. Even if sometimes like today it's a bit of a slog me and carter's dad. Um, we're just so happy that he found his thing and the ocean has just always been his thing that kind of like calms him and grounds him and he's so happy to be out there and we're happy to help his passion. Every day there comes one of your wave carter's enthusiasm and stoke is definitely contagious. Being in the water with him. Sure. Made this longtime sheriff for feel like a 10 year old kid again. And that feeling may be compelled me to share with him the view from a few decades down the road. I'll tell you one thing, right? It never gets any less fun.

'I'm just going to keep doing it': 10-year-old doesn't let snow or ice snap his daily surfing streak

Updated: 6:54 AM EST Jan 14, 2022

It was a snow day for Carter Dooley's school district in New Jersey. But snow and ice didn't keep the 10-year-old from his daily surfing routine.Dooley started going surfing every day when New Jersey first went into lockdown in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 590 days later, he's keeping the streak alive."Since there is nothing else to do, why not keep doing it?" he told News 12 New Jersey. "It's fun. And I got all these great things from doing it, so I'm just going to keep doing it."His initial goal was a 100-day surfing streak. Then, he moved it to a year. Now, he's bumped it to 1,000 days.Dooley's parents help out with transportation and motivation. "Me and Carter's dad, we're just so happy that he found his thing and the ocean has always been his thing that kind of calms him and grounds him and he's so happy to be out there, and we're happy to help his passion every day," Dooley's mother, Dawn, said. Dooley has used the attention he's received on social media and local news coverage to help others. He's collected food for a soup kitchen and raised money for an animal rescue in his community.See him hit the waves in the video above.

BRIGANTINE, N.J. (Video: News 12 New Jersey via CNN) —

It was a snow day for Carter Dooley's school district in New Jersey.

But snow and ice didn't keep the 10-year-old from his daily surfing routine.

Dooley started going surfing every day when New Jersey first went into lockdown in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 590 days later, he's keeping the streak alive.

"Since there is nothing else to do, why not keep doing it?" he told News 12 New Jersey. "It's fun. And I got all these great things from doing it, so I'm just going to keep doing it."

His initial goal was a 100-day surfing streak. Then, he moved it to a year. Now, he's bumped it to 1,000 days.

Dooley's parents help out with transportation and motivation.

"Me and Carter's dad, we're just so happy that he found his thing and the ocean has always been his thing that kind of calms him and grounds him and he's so happy to be out there, and we're happy to help his passion every day," Dooley's mother, Dawn, said.

Dooley has used the attention he's received on social media and local news coverage to help others. He's collected food for a soup kitchen and raised money for an animal rescue in his community.

See him hit the waves in the video above.

The Tokyo Olympics are in full swing and medals have started to roll in. The U.S. men’s gymnastics team will compete in the finals, surfing will continue its Olympic debut and the Olympic pool will see more action with swimming events. Here’s what’s happening today.SWIMMING The Americans were thrilled with their first day collection of six medals, a fete not even accomplished in the Michael Phelps era — a span of five Summer Games.The U.S. will have four more chances at winning some hardware led by two-time Olympic gold medalist Lilly King and three-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Murphy. King will attempt to defend her title in the 100-meter breaststroke, and Murphy looks for a second consecutive gold in the men’s 100-meter backstroke.The finals of the men’s 200-meter freestyle and women’s 100-meter backstroke will also be decided, all during NBC’s primetime coverage. The swimming finals begin at 9:30 p.m.WOMEN’S BASKETBALLFew teams have been as dominant in the Olympics as the U.S. women’s basketball team, which has won gold dating all the way to the Atlanta Games in 1996. The women won bronze at the Barcelona Games four years earlier — the last Olympic loss for a team that opens these Olympics with a 66-3 record.If the Americans win their seventh straight championship they will tie the U.S. men’s basketball team for the most consecutive Olympic team victories in all Olympic sports, men or women.But not the current men’s team you know, rather the teams that reeled off seven consecutive golds from 1936 through 1968. The U.S. women play Nigeria at 12:40 a.m. on USA Network.MEN’S WATER POLOThe U.S. men’s water polo team tries for its second straight win when it faces South Africa at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre.Alex Bowen scored five times to help the U.S. rally for a dramatic 15-13 victory over Japan in its first match in Tokyo. Another win would strengthen the United States’ chances for advancing to the next round after it finished 10th at the 2016 Olympics. The game will share air time with April Ross and Alix Klineman’s beach volleyball match against Spain during the 8 p.m. primetime window in CNBC.GYMNASTICS The men's gymnastics team final is set to take place at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre on day 3 of the Tokyo Games. U.S. men's gymnasts qualified in fourth for the final with a score of 256.761. Anyone who wasn't able to catch the qualifying rounds for women's gymnastics can watch it reair at 7:30 p.m. ET. SURFINGRound 3 of both men's and women's surfing will take place on day 3 of the Tokyo Olympics. MEN'S BASKETBALLTeam USA fell to France during a game that took place Sunday morning, but fans will be able to rewatch at 4 p.m. ET. The loss marked the first time since 2004 that the U.S. men's basketball team lost in the Olympics. France — the team that knocked the Americans out of contention in the Basketball World Cup two years ago — dealt the U.S. a major blow once again. Evan Fournier's 3-pointer with just under a minute left put France ahead to stay in what became a 83-76 win over the Americans on Sunday in the opening game for both teams at the Tokyo Olympics. The U.S. had won 25 consecutive Olympic games, last losing at the Athens Games 17 years ago and settling for a bronze medal there. The loss doesn't knock the U.S. out of medal contention, but it essentially eliminates the margin for error. The Americans play Iran on Wednesday and then the Czech Republic on Saturday in its final two Group A games; win both of those, and the U.S. will be in the quarterfinals. Lose another one, and the Americans might not even finish in the top eight of this 12-team tournament.MEN'S TRIATHLONThe men's triathlon final will be live at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sunday.SOFTBALLAs the sport returns to the Olympics for the first time since 2008, Team USA faces Japan in an opening-round game of the Olympic softball tournament at 9 p.m. ET.Check out the full Olympics schedule here. The Associated Press and CNN contributed to this report.

Related video above: Olympic surfing bittersweet for Native HawaiiansJohanne Defay of France was devastated when the mega sponsor Roxy dropped her right before she became a pro surfer in 2014, shattering her confidence and threatening her career altogether."They were just like 'Oh, you don't look this way, you know, for, like, pictures," Defay said. "And I just felt like I was never doing enough or I wasn't fitting in, in the way that they wanted for their brand."Now, Defay is headed to the Tokyo Olympics for surfing's debut at the Summer Games, buoyed by an upset win against reigning world champion Carissa Moore at the high-intensity Surf Ranch competition last month.Though there's much excitement and renewed enthusiasm for the women's game, years of objectification, pay disparities and an opportunity gap have taken their toll. Industry leaders from the professional World Surf League and the developmental USA Surfing say they're committed to righting the wrongs that have long held female surfers back in the male-dominated sport.The mental, financial and logistical roadblocks for women in surfing date back centuries.Hawaiians who invented the sport treated it as an egalitarian national pastime that all genders, ages and social classes enjoyed, according to Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Hawaii surfing historian. But Christian missionaries who arrived on the island tried to ban surfing in large part because of nudity — surfing naked was common at the sports' inception. Though locals largely defied the colonizers, female surfers saw their ranks shrink disproportionately."When it comes to controlling nudity, it's about controlling female bodies," said Walker, also a BYU-Hawaii history professor.Even for Moore, the child prodigy who could beat the boys before growing up to be — at 18 years old — the youngest World Surf League champion in history, said she's also struggled with her body image. Moore is 28 now and has spoken openly about starving herself as a teenager, only to binge eat later, and once even trying to force herself to throw up."Everyone had this idea of what a surfer girl should look like. And there were a lot of 'hot lists' or the 'cutest surfer girl list,'" Moore said. "I never made them, but then you see who actually made them and you feel like: 'Oh, I guess, like, that's what I should look like.'"Modern day professional surfing in a previous iteration had a decentralized approach that left brand sponsors in charge of many of the competition logistics, which would vary widely from one event to another, said Greg Cruse, USA Surfing CEO. And though it wasn't an official rule or standard, there was clearly a preference for the men's game. Surfing schedules are determined in the morning based on what the ocean waves are like, and it was no secret that the boys' and men's competitions would be given the best surf conditions, usually in the morning. Female surfers took the scraps, if they were invited at all."There'd be the event directors and they would kind of schedule things the way they wanted to schedule and there would be bias from the outdated patriarchy. It's changed immensely," Cruse said. "It took a while for the women to complain about it."A turning point came in 2013, when new ownership took over the professional league and the rebranded WSL began to prioritize standardizing the competitions and rebuilding the women's events, said Jessi Miley-Dyer, a retired pro surfer who now runs the WSL's competition as senior vice president.In 2019, the WSL as the leaders of the $10 billion surfing industry also began offering equal prize money for all its events, making it one of the few professional sports leagues to achieve pay equity."It was an important statement to make around the value of our athletes. More than anything, it speaks to the emphasis on women's surfing. We believe men and women are valued the same," Miley-Dyer said. "It's the right thing to do."The announcement was emotional for many, including Miley-Dyer. Back in 2006 when she won a pro event, she earned just $10,000 — a third of what the top male surfer took home."I cried because it means so much," Miley-Dyer said. "I had also retired, so it wasn't something for me, but it felt something to me and so many people like me."Next year will be the first time the WSL will include its women surfers at the famous Pipe Masters competition, allowing them the chance to ride the Banzai Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii, considered by many the best waves in the world.The WSL has also committed to hosting the same number of events and in the same locations for both the men and women, though the competition at the highest level today still has twice as many male competitor spots — 36 — compared to the women's game.In terms of skill and experience, the damage caused by decades of sexism has not yet been fully reversed.It used to be that girls could begin competitive surfing training at about 11 years old while boys began as early as 4, Cruse said, adding that USA Surfing has closed this experience gap.And surfboard makers, like many male leaders in the sport, used to believe that girls and women weren't strong enough to paddle or ride powerfully enough to pull off airs, or aerial maneuvers, so they were given bigger surfboards that are physically easier to ride, but limited their ability to progress into more explosive moves.So while airs have for years become the gold standard in the men's competition, it is rarely done by the top female surfers today. Moore, the U.S. surfer to beat at the Olympics, is the first woman to land an air during competition, a milestone achieved just recently but has no doubt electrified the women's game and its future."They started demanding getting the same type of equipment that allows you to generate more speed and turn sharper and harder," Cruse said. "Right now, there's a group of girls coming up. The girls under 16 are better at airs than any of the women in the WSL. They already have the air game and it's next level and there's going to be a changing of the guard."For Defay, she persevered during her first year without corporate backing. She remembers feeling humiliated hearing others take for granted their private car services arranged by their sponsors after Defay arrived on a two-hour bus ride in order to save money.She's thankful fellow pro surfer Jeremy Flores helped sponsor her "insane" rookie season, as a nine-month season can cost as much as $80,000 in travel costs alone.Now, they're equals, teammates in Japan on the French Olympic surfing team.The 27-year-old Defay's journey to the pros has made her hungrier than ever to prove her talents and worth at the world's most elite sporting event. And she'll do it with the body she has learned to appreciate, regardless of how any sponsor may have judged her before.Though Roxy didn't respond to requests for comment on Defay's past sponsorship deal, the surfer declares this:"I like my shoulders now and my butt," Defay said with a smirk. "It's just what it is and what makes me surf this way, so I try to celebrate it."