Ball Boy is MVP in Amputee’s Life

John Flowers’ dream of playing in the NBA died on a Kansas City freeway in August 1992.

He was riding in a car that was hit by another driver and spun out of control before slamming into a utility pole. Flowers was thrown partway through the rear window, his upper body landing on the car’s trunk, his legs ensnared in a web of twisted steel and broken glass.

The 6-foot, 4-inch guard from Phoenix College was the top basketball recruit that year for Cal State Northridge. His accident in Missouri happened days before classes were to start at Northridge.

Flowers recalled telling rescuers, “You have to get me out. You don’t understand, you have to get me out!”

Three weeks later, doctors amputated both his legs.

“Basketball was my life,” he said. “It got me into community college and a scholarship to Northridge.”

But Flowers’ life changed again, after he met Joshua Hay during a Cal State Northridge basketball game later that fall. Hay, the team ball boy, was 11 years old when he introduced himself to Flowers, who was watching the game in a wheelchair.

Hay said he decided to help after hearing that Flowers couldn’t pay his medical bills.

“It really upset me how he lost his opportunity for an education,” Hay said. “I thought it was unfortunate that more people couldn’t help.”

So Hay told Flowers he planned to raise money for him the former basketball player by holding a free-throw contest.

“He came up to me and told me what he was going to,” Flowers said. “I looked at him and I couldn’t believe what was coming out of this little kid’s mouth.”

Hay recruited about 20 organizations, mostly Northridge fraternities and campus clubs, to collect pledges and sponsor people to shoot foul shots at halftime during a game that winter.

The fund-raiser, which attracted players from the Lakers and Clippers, as well as local TV sportscasters, raised $15,000. A second fund-raiser collected $12,000.

“I thought that if I tried my best, I could do it,” Hay said. “The important thing was to do charity--that’s what I learned through my school and my synagogue.”

Flowers, 27, recounted these events during an interview at Temple Em Habanim in West Hills, where members, including Hay, will honor him Sunday at a fund-raising dinner.

Proceeds will benefit Temple Em Habanim and Camp Chesed, a two-week day camp for disabled Jewish children. Flowers has worked there as a volunteer sports director for the past four summers.

After his accident, Flowers studied computer programming at Phoenix College and Arizona State University West. He now works for a computer graphics firm designing Web pages.

He also has spent countless hours in rehabilitation. He has undergone several surgeries to repair nerve damage so he can wear artificial legs.

“I have a lot of pain when I wear my legs,” he said. “It feels like a million needles in a pincushion.”

Still, Flowers said, he hopes to walk on his prostheses for the first time in public at Sunday’s dinner.

Flowers was able to pay part of the $35,000 cost of the limbs through funds raised by Hay, who is now 17.

Although the two basketball fans live in separate countries--Hay is a freshman at Shaarei Jerusalem in Israel and Flowers lives in Phoenix--the two friends see each other every summer at Camp Chesed.

These days, said Flowers, who plans to try out for the Special Olympics basketball team, “I don’t take anything for granted and I try to live my life to the fullest.”