A Shorter Arm, But a Huge Heart Has Football Player Inspiring Teammates

His friends use words like "smart," and "happy" and "all-around spectacular" to describe Steve Shipley-Sanchez.

The one word they don’t use is “disabled.”

Shipley-Sanchez, a senior lineman for the Jefferson Township Falcons football team, was born with his left arm only extending to a bit below his elbow.

A soccer player throughout his younger years, Shipley-Sanchez decided to make the change to football in high school.

“I found that soccer was getting boring for me, so when I got to high school, I decided to try all the sports that I didn’t play when I was younger,” he said.

Besides football, he is also a wrestler in the winter and a thrower on the spring track team.

Shipley-Sanchez said football was a bit difficult at first.

“It’s hard when you’re in a play and you’re not sure what’s going on, But, being part of a team is the best thing—next to hitting [an opponent], of course,” he said.

The one thing that Shipley-Sanchez does to compensate for his shorter arm is to be quicker on his feet.

“I told him that he had to get himself in position with his feet, but other than that, he doesn’t do anything different than the rest of the team,” his coach, Joe Mattessich, said. “And no one looks on this as a disability.

“Sometimes we make light of it,” Mattessich continued. “Steve has trouble tying his spikes, so he has someone do it for him. We make a joke out of it, but no one sees Steve as having a disability.”

And neither does Shipley-Sanchez.

The teammates he works most closely with, A.J. Willard, Dylan Pickard and Tyler O’Connell, agree with that assessment.

“I don’t think I’d be able to do half the things he does if I was in his position,” Willard said.

“I can’t do them now,” Pickard said.

“Steve is just such a happy kid. He smiles all the time. You never see a frown on his face,” Pickard said. “His mindset is positive. It’s better than anyone else I know.”

“And he’s smart,” Willard said. “He switches positions and plays both of them well.”

When he’s off the field, Shipley-Sanchez is a pretty typical 18-year-old kid. He likes going out with his friends at the mall or the movies, or playing video games.

He’s not sure yet about whether he’ll play football in college, but is in the process or looking at several schools, with an aim toward studying some type of engineering.