Nine-year-old Ezra French is one amazing kid. Ezra recently sat down with Ellen DeGeneres to talk about both his disability and his zest for life.
“I was born with one finger on my left hand and a leg that was curved. They removed the part that was curved – they took the big toe and they put it on my left hand so now I have two fingers and a stump that they can put a prosthetic leg on.”
“So it has not slowed you down a bit has it,” asks Ellen.
“No,” Ezra says with a smile.
Since he was a baby, Ezra has loved being active. And he’s passionate about sports. Basketball, soccer, football, skateboarding and track and field are among his favorites. Ezra’s excellence in sports even got him featured in Sports Illustrated as one of the Sports Kids of the Year.
“When I play sports, I feel at home. I don’t feel different. I just feel like I’m one of the guys.”
Ezra shares a story about a coach who gave him a motto he now applies to his life: “Finish Well” He admits he didn’t truly know what it meant when his PE coach first told him the phrase, as he was just a kindergartener at the time. But the motto stuck with him. “When I’m doing a race,” he says, “maybe I slip and fall at the beginning, but I get up and I go, ‘Ok, finish well. Finish well. And you drive harder and harder and harder and eventually get to the finish line.”
Besides a strong determination, Ezra also has advice for others who may be faced with challenges in life:
“Everybody has challenges … Being different is okay. You can dream it, you can hope it, and you can make it happen.”
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