Gavin Floyd, once a baseball star at Mount St. Joseph's and now a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, recently used his good fortune from a productive career to purchase a 24-year-old college student the gift of a lifetime.
Floyd bought Tim Smith, a student at Trinity College in Florida, a new pair of legs.
It's a touching story. Smith was born without legs, but it didn't stop him from playing sports and climbing rocks. He would remove his prosthetic legs -- made functional by duct tape, Velcro and a lot of oil -- and move around on his stumps. Doctors recommended that he upgrade to a new model of prosthetics, ones that cost $31,000.
That's where Floyd and his wife, Leanna, came in.
After Smith received $10,000 in donations from elsewhere, the Floyds donated the final $21,000 to make it a reality. Smith had the surgery earlier this month, and the Floyds visited him at Trinity to see how he is doing.
"We talked about it, prayed about it, and just felt led to do it," said Floyd, who is 58-55 with a 4.50 ERA in eight major league seasons in Chicago and Philadelphia. "To know what he's achieved in his life really moved us."
Consider Smith, who was already religious and a biblical studies major at Trinity, touched by Floyd's kindness.
"I wish somebody was around to capture my emotions on camera, because I was ecstatic, I was in tears," Smith told The Tampa Tribune. "I was so in love with God at that moment … it just blew my heart away."
I suggest you read the entire uplifting story by Michelle Bearden, which you can do by clicking this link.