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dad. He’s a proud man and doesn’t like taking charity. He works hard every day. But I don’t think of this as asking for charity. I think of it as asking for a chance. A chance to work hard at the game I love.
    Mr. DeMartini, my teammates and I feel like we got hit from the blind side. But my dad once told me it takes no talent to get knocked down, especially in a game like football. He said that it’s how you get back up that counts. I am asking for your help, to give me and my teammates a chance to get back up. If you do, I will make you a promise in return:
    We will be a team that will make you stand up and cheer.
    Maybe we can even get our town to do the same thing.
    They could use it here.
    Thank you very much for taking the time to read this letter. My dad has always told me to speak from the heart and that is what I tried to do.
    Very respectfully yours,
Will Tyler
    Now he was staring at the return address on the letter he held now in hands that didn’t shake this way when a game was on the line:
    New Balance Headquarters
20 Guest Street
Brighton, Mass. 02135-2088
    Will was careful opening the envelope, even though his first impulse was to rip it open like it was a Christmas present. He knew that if somehow there was good news inside, he was going to want to keep everything intact.
    The letter was typed, with Mr. DeMartini’s signature at the bottom:
    Dear Will,
    As you can probably guess, we get a lot of letters at New Balance asking us for money, from people all over the world. But I’m not sure I’ve ever received one that touched me quite like yours did, like it came straight from your heart to mine.
    And like me, you’ve probably seen the credit card commercials on TV where they give the dollar value on a few items and then have something at the end that they call “priceless.”
    Well, I’m pretty sure that when I was your age, I would have considered my own football season priceless.
    That’s why I consider having to pay only ten thousand dollars for yours a bargain.
    Jim Davis, our chairman, is an old Middlebury College football player, and we’ve both always shared a dream of owning a National Football League team. That may be a little out of our reach. But when I showed him your letter, he said maybe it was about time New Balance owned a football team, even if it was one in Forbes, Pa.
    Somebody from my office will contact your dad in the next few days and he can give us the proper contacts to start working out all the details of sponsoring a team in your league.
    For now?
    Go tell your friends and your coach and the whole town if you want to that there’s going to be a season after all.
    I can’t tell you how much I look forward to meeting you one of these days. Maybe at the championship game.
    I look forward to watching you carry the ball.
    Your new friend in football,
Rob DeMartini
    Will was by himself. When his dad had delivered the mail, he had just rung the doorbell like he always did, turned and waved when he saw Will waving at him from his bedroom window. Then he took a right at the end of the walk and headed up Valley to continue his route.
    No limping today, not with Will watching him.
    Will had raced downstairs—having a feeling and not knowing why—saw the letter, saw who it was from, took it into the kitchen and sat down at the table to read it.
    He read every word and then when he finished, he went back and read the whole thing again, just to make sure that he hadn’t dreamed up the whole thing.
    His heart was pounding as if he’d just gone the whole length of the field on a kickoff return, had just crossed the goal line.
    He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, trying to be cool.
    Then he raised his right arm nearly to the ceiling, fist closed, pulled his arm down hard, the way Hannah Grayson had done after she made that insane kick in front of him .
    â€œYes!” he shouted at the top of his voice, not