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NFL kicker's OCD was on display seconds before game-winning kick and it earned him new fans

The kick led to a big win for the Commanders and a big win for the OCD community.

Photo by Anders Krøgh Jørgensen on Unsplash

Zane Gonzalez hasn't had the most glamorous NFL career. Getting drafted in the seventh round by the Cleveland Browns in 2017 was a great start for a well-decorated college kicker, but after a few critical misses led to his release, he's bounced around the league and struggled to stick with any team. That was all set to change, though, as his Washington Commanders (his sixth team in about as many years) recently called on him to make what would be a game-winning, life-changing kick in a playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

To the naked eye, Gonzalez looked extremely nervous as he readied himself for the attempt. The camera showed him fidgeting endlessly with his socks, and then smoothing his hair repeatedly as he walked onto the field. He'd pat it down and place his helmet on, only to remove it, smooth his hair down again, and repeat the process over again. The cameras caught it all, and NFL fans were left wondering: What's going on with Zane Gonzalez?

Moments later, the ball was snapped, Gonzalez made his approach, and BOOM — he nailed the kick, miraculously bouncing it off the upright and through for the game-winning points! It would be the highlight of his NFL career to date, by a wide margin.

People were confused by Gonzalez's hair-smoothing routine. Was he nervous? Or just trying to look his best for the camera?

"Zane Gonzalez needs to take a hit before going on the field," one X user joked. "Dude is in his head."

"How many times did zane gonzalez fix his hair," wrote another. "No wonder he almost missed!" someone added.

The real reason behind Gonzalez's odd pre-kick behavior is much more complicated: He has OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and has talked openly about it in the past.

The recent playoff game was many people's first introduction to Gonzalez, but anyone who's watched a Commanders game this season is quite familiar with his hair smoothing and sock-fidgeting ways. They're tics — compulsive, repetitive behaviors associated with disorders like OCD or Tourette's, anxiety, stress, etc.

Gonzalez has discussed his OCD with the media before. He says it comes with major challenges, but on the football field, it can become a bit of a superpower.

"It affected me a lot more as a young kid. ... It’s just little thoughts, little funny habits that I do," he said in an interview.

“I’ve done a lot of research on it. Specifically, sometimes I rinse my hands before kicks. ... And I was kind of curious about that. But that’s one of the most common things that people with OCD do. It instantly makes you just feel relieved. I don’t know why, if it’s just a placebo effect. It’s not something I love having. But it just is what it is, and I’ve learned to deal with it.”

Being a kicker in the NFL requires unimaginable precision, and many players rely on routines, rituals, and repetition to be at their best. Gonzalez says that, in that sense, his OCD helps.

"It makes you a perfectionist and more detail oriented," Gonzalez said. "Off the field, it's a pain in the butt."

People with OCD were inspired by Gonzalez's clutch performance.

OCD is one of those therapy words we all misuse. It's common for people to joke about "being OCD" because they're a perfectionist or like things clean.

And that can be one part of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But in reality it can be a debilitating disorder in the day to day, and can also cause things like intrusive thoughts, paralyzing anxiety, and major fear or dirt or germs.

The fact that Gonzalez has overcome all of that to perform at football's highest levels gained him a ton of respect in the eyes of many.

"As a fellow OCDer, shoutout to Zane for getting it done. Those tics can be a real [pain] sometimes" wrote sports journalist Pete Hailey.

"Shoutout to Zane Gonzalez for sharing his story with OCD. It’s a tough thing to share, but my battles have shaped me into the personal I am today. So I have zero shame or hesitancy in sharing what I’ve battled throughout my life," said sports writer Sean Paul.

It's tough to find positive OCD representation in sports and media. There are a lot of misconceptions about the disorder (again, having OCD rarely has anything to do with being a neat freak!), and beyond that, it's not something that's easy to see with the naked eye. It can be hidden and masked with some effort. Gonzalez's tics and rituals being on full-display in front of a playoff audience of millions of people was a powerful moment that had a huge impact on others in the OCD community. Lucky for all of us, we get to watch him play for at least one more week this season!

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Videos

High school teacher describes her day in viral video with a plea to give educators grace

"Loving kids is the purest form of beauty that exists—and it's always going to beat your ugly."

@kpintoledo/TikTok

Katie Peters shared a day in the life of pandemic teaching and pleaded for teachers to be given grace.

Teachers are heroes under normal circumstances. During a pandemic that has upended life as we know it, they are honest-to-goodness, bona fide superheroes.

The juggling of school and COVID-19 has been incredibly challenging, creating friction between officials, administrators, teachers, unions, parents, and the public at large. Everyone has different opinions about what should and shouldn't have been done, and those opinions sometimes conflict with what can and cannot, and is and is not, being done. In the end, the overwhelming result has bee that everyone is just…done.

And as is usually the case with education-related controversies, teachers are taking the brunt of it. Their calls for safe school policies have been met with claims that kids aren't at risk of severe COVID, as if teachers' health and well-being are expendable. Parents' frustrations with remote or hybrid learning are taken out on the teachers who are constantly scrambling to adjust to ever-changing circumstances that make everything about teaching more complicated.

Superheroes, seriously.

But as Toledo, Ohio high school teacher Katie Peters says, teachers aren't looking for accolades. They're doing the jobs they love, even though they're incredibly difficult right now. What they do need is for people to understand what a teacher's day looks like and to extend them some grace.

Peters' 2022 TikTok video describing a day in the life of a teacher teaching six classes has been viewed more than 2.5 million times.

After sharing that she taught six periods and subbed during her planning period, she said, “I helped a young man find safe housing. I found a winter coat for a girl who didn’t have one. I located a student's missing backpack and arranged for a Chromebook replacement for that student. I gave a student a little bit of cash for a haircut and made sure another student had enough food to last them through the weekend.”

She also comforted a student who had cramps, supported a student who was going through his first heartbreak, saved a student's art project with some super glue, walked a student to class so they wouldn't feel alone, and wrote a card for a student who was struggling. That was just during the school day.

After school she had a meeting, tutored a student, then wrote a college recommendation letter for a student who brought her the request the day before it was due.

Then she spent four hours at home planning "fun, inviting, exciting lesson plans that could, at the drop of a hat, need to go virtual without any warning."

But Peters said she didn't want a single accolade. "No teacher I know wants a pat on the back or gratitude," she said. "What they do need is grace." She pointed out that doing all of these things are what teachers love to do and what fulfills them. But it's also why they're tired. The pandemic has made everything harder.

Peters said a piece of her was shattered when she read a comment in a community forum about her district going back to in-person learning, "Oh, it's nice the teachers decided to work again." As if teachers have not been working the hardest they ever have during all of the pandemic upheaval? Please.

"Nobody, in the history of ever, has been motivated by ugly," she said. "Loving kids is the purest form of beauty that exists—and it's always going to beat your ugly."

Well said.

Peters told TODAY that negative comments make teachers feel defeated, which impacts their job. “I’m not sure how much people realize that their words carry over into our ability to care for their children,” Peters said. “We need you to hold space for us and understand that we are doing our best given the circumstances.”

People loved Peters' honest and heartfelt account of what teachers are experiencing and what they really need from the rest of us: Grace. Patience. Understanding. Not ugliness or blame.

If anyone who isn't a teacher has something negative to say and thinks they could handle the job better, they are more than welcome to get their teacher training education and certification and try their hand at it. Otherwise, give teachers the respect they deserve and the grace they so desperately need as they try to keep their hole-filled lifeboats afloat with paperclips and a hot glue gun.

Teachers, we see you. We've got your back. Hang in there.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Joy

13 truck drivers parked side by side in the middle of the night to save a life

Humanity at its best.

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It's beautiful when humanity comes together.

Around 1 a.m. on April 24 2018, semi-truck drivers in the Oak Park area of Michigan received a distress call from area police: An unidentified man was standing on the edge of a local bridge, apparently ready to jump onto the freeway below.

Those drivers then did something amazing. They raced to the scene to help—and lined up their trucks under the bridge, providing a relatively safe landing space should the man jump.

Fortunately, he didn't.

The impressive line-up wasn't a coincidence—the drivers were prepared for exactly this sort of situation. Sgt. Jason Brockdorff of the Huntington Woods Police Department told The Detroit News that the response was something local police and truck drivers had actually trained for. But what was unusual was the sheer number of drivers who responded to the call.

"That's a practice we use if we have a jumper," Brockdorff said. "We try to do it every time, to lessen the distance someone would travel if they were to jump. Fortunately, that didn't happen."

The incident lasted nearly four hours, into the early morning. However, once the trucks were in place, the police were able to more comfortably negotiate with the unidentified man.

Eventually, the man walked off the bridge on his own and received medical attention.

In a pair of tweets, the local police department called attention to the incident to remind people in similar situations of the importance of seeking mental health services (emphasis mine):

This photo does show the work troopers and local officers do to serve the public. But also in that photo is a man struggling with the decision to take his own life. Please remember help is available through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
You can also call a loved one, member of the clergy or 911. There are so many people that can help you make the choice to get help and live! It is our hope to never see another photo like this again.

Working together, the police and everyday strangers saved a life.

Ordinary people heeded the call of service to help a fellow person who was struggling. It's a powerful image that's impossible to ignore, and a reminder of humanity at its best.


This article originally appeared seven years ago.

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Heroes

A man called 911, then his 5-year-old picked up the phone. Life-saving adorableness ensued

"I don't know what I'm gonna wear, but... he really needs oxygen, real fast."

jeffsaks123/YouTube

Brace yourselves, folks, because this is almost too friggin' adorable to handle. A 911 call can be a scary thing, and an emergency call from a dad having chest pains and trouble breathing is no exception. But thankfully, an exchange between that dad's 5-year-old daughter and 911 dispatcher Jason Bonham turned out to be more humor than horror. If you missed hearing the recording that has repeatedly gone viral since 2010, you have to hear it now. It's perfectly timeless.

When an Indiana dad used his cell phone to called 911 and couldn't talk, his daughter Savannah picked up the phone. Remaining remarkably calm, cool, and collected, the articulate 5-year-old expertly answered Bonham's questions—and added her own hilarious commentary as well.

At Bonham's request, she made sure the front door was unlocked so the emergency crew could get in. She told him about their dog, Lou Lou, who was "small" and "barks a lot," but was "friendly." She consoled her dad—who may have been in the middle of a heart attack—with "Don't worry, Dad," and "Stay calm, Dad." She also kept the dispatcher up to speed on what was happening, repeatedly saying, "So far, so good."

But the pièce de résistance was when Savannah told Bonham that she and her dad were in their "jammies" so she'd have to change. "I don't know what I'm gonna wear, but...he really needs oxygen, real fast."

Five. Years. Old. This kid is seriously something else. Watch:

Little girl calls 911 - Adorable - "He can't hardly breathe"youtu.be

Bonham said he was surprised by how Savannah handled the call. "Most people when you talk to them, they're hysterical," he told Eyewitness News. "Every time I've listened to it it's amazing. She's just a little person."

Thankfully, despite the scare, everything turned out fine for Savannah's dad. When the story went viral, her mom posted on Facebook, "We are so grateful & blessed that Savannah's 911 call is still being circulated. It makes the whole entire night worth while. The more awareness it brings & the more adults that teach children what to do the better!"

Well done teaching that kiddo, mom and dad. She was truly amazing.


This article originally appeared four years ago.

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