Thoughtful Ball Boy Spurs Benefit for Flowers : CSUN basketball:Eleven-year-old prompts fund-raiser after being touched by plight of recruit who lost both his legs.

Josh Hay, 11, was dutifully performing his chores as ball boy for the Cal State Northridge basketball team last month when he first met John Flowers.

Flowers was near the end of the Matadors’ bench, observing his first Northridge game, a nonconference matchup with Cal State Fullerton on Dec. 19.

A one-time Northridge recruit, Flowers had his promising playing career ended by injuries sustained in a car accident in August. He lost both legs in five operations after the accident and never played for the Matadors, but the team had not forgotten him.

He visited for a weekend and watched the game courtesy of Coach Pete Cassidy, who personally paid for Flowers to fly in from his home in Glendale, Ariz.

Flowers said he “loved it. It was great, a great moment for me.”

He also remembers meeting Hay, who he said, “was talking to me a lot.

“I was kidding with him, playing around,” Flowers said.

But Hay, in his own mind, was plotting. And when the game ended, he approached his father, Jacques, with the idea of helping the Flowers family defray medical expenses and set up a fund for John’s education.

Jacques Hay, who owns a trophy company and has worked closely with the Northridge athletic program, said his son was “deeply touched” by Flowers’ plight. “He said, ‘Dad, can’t we do something more?’ ”

That question has led to the formation of a large-scale fund-raiser that is scheduled for halftime of Northridge’s home game against St. Mary’s on Feb. 23.

Together, the Hays have solicited about 20 organizations, most of them Northridge fraternities and sororities, which will secure monetary pledges in what can loosely be described as a free-throw-a-thon.

Each organization will be represented by a free-throw shooter taking five shots.

The Flowers family will receive money for every shot made.

Josh himself already has pledges for almost $600 for each successful shot.

A large chunk of his pledges has come from his 67 classmates at West Valley Hebrew Academy, who have offered from 25 cents to $20 for each free throw he makes.

Flowers learned this week that he will attend the game, thanks to Galpin Ford, which donated two round-trip airline tickets as part of a halftime promotion during Northridge’s 62-53 win over Loyola Marymount on Tuesday.

“I knew I was going to end up back there,” Flowers said. “I just didn’t know how.”

Hay, Flowers said, “seemed like a nice kid. I didn’t think he’d do anything like this.”

Said Flowers’ father, John Sr.: “That is overwhelming. I’m speechless.”

Josh, a quiet youngster, simply shrugs off his good deed but his father says this is not the first time his son has been charitable.

“He does a lot of behind-the-scenes work, usually through the school,” Jacques Hay said.

“He’s a special kid. I always say, ‘Someday, when I grow up, I hope I’m half the man my son is.’ ”