TEEN BEATS THE ODDS WELL BEFORE HIS SANDWICH-WINNING HALF-COURT SHOTS
A TV timeout early in the second quarter of Saturday night's loss to the Golden
State Warriors may actually have been the high point of the Sixers' season so far. Not only was the home team up 20 points on the reigning world champions, but everyone in attendance won a free Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit thanks to 17-year-old Mike Shelly of Newtown Square.
The sellout crowd at the Wells Fargo Center, still riding high off the Sixers' fast start, erupted – in part because they were all getting free sandwiches, but more
so because of the impressive performance they just witnessed from Shelly, who defied the odds by making the three-pointer and half-court shot on back-to-back attempts.
"Honestly, that all happened so fast," Shelly said prior to Monday night's 107-86 win over the Jazz. "I got brought down, and they tell me I'm on during the second TV timeout. Then right when it happened they push me on the court and are like, 'Go, go, go,' so I'm
like, 'OK.' Then in-arena host Christian Crosby explains it real quick.
So then I start shooting, and right when I got toward the three-pointer and I wasn't making them, I could feel it kind of quieted down. But after I hit the three-pointer, everyone was like, 'Oh my God, he's going to have a chance to make it.'
Right when I took the half-court shot, I was looking at
it like, 'Oh, God. That might go in.' I honestly didn't expect it; I had to chuck it up real quick. And when it went in, it was the loudest I'd heard the place all night, for my half-court shot.
Obviously, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand in front of the sold-out crowd at the Wells Fargo Center and everyone chanting for you. It was amazing."
Believe it or
not, that's only the beginning of Shelly's incredible story, one that's seen him overcome much more difficult odds in recent years and somehow remain positive in the face of tragedy.
At age 14, just prior to his freshman year at Marple Newtown High School, Shelly was diagnosed with stage IV Burkitt lymphoma; a high-grade B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma...READ MORE 
