The BYU-I Scroll Article: Video game features disabled student’s image

This is so cool!!! I called The Scroll after reading it, and asked for them to forward the article to me. I wish they'd included his picture, but I'll try to work on that later... For now, just read it, and comment what you think, please!
Claire


Video game features disabled student’s image
Have you ever contemptuously thought to yourself that those playing sports video games should go play a “real” sport?
“To most people it’s a video game, to me it’s a dream come true,” said Hans Smith, a junior studying communication, of the upcoming release of MLB 10 The Show, which will feature his image as a player in the game.
Smith’s dream is to become a radio baseball commentator. Smith also has cerebral palsy, which confines him to a wheelchair and affects his hands and arms, making physical participation in sporting activities all but impossible.
“Your disability is what you have, not who you are,” Smith said. “Your mind determines your reality. Now I can be me. Now I can be a baseball player.”
Smith has loved baseball since early childhood and remembers when his two older brothers explained the games to him as they would listen together on the radio. “We were one of five families [in the country] who didn’t have cable TV,” Smith said.
Later, when his parents bought him a Sega Genesis so he could play baseball video games, Smith surprised his family by beating his two brothers. Owing to his physical disability, Smith’s parents had doubted his ability to use the video game controller. “I absolutely killed ‘em,” Smith said. This started Smith’s career of “virtual baseball.”
Not all baseball games, however, are alike to Smith. In the fall of 2007, when Smith saw a commercial for MLB 08 The Show, he knew it was better than what he had been playing.
“This game was unbelievable,” Smith said. Along with excellent graphics and a first-person play mode, “… you had to read coaches’ signs … [and know] when to be in position for a double feature.”
The new game more fully recreated the feeling of being an actual baseball player. Smith was sold, and he got rid of his Xbox in order to be able to purchase and play the new game on the PlayStation 3. Little did he know that his decision to buy this game would lead to him being a “part of the action” in more ways than he expected.
“I decided to play a whole 162 game series,” Smith said. “About the middle of the season I realized I would be extremely ungrateful if I didn’t thank [the makers of the game].”
“I wanted to write Sony … to tell them how much I appreciated their game,” Smith said. “[When I wrote to them] I said…you have given me an opportunity to do something that I would do in real life, but I can’t because of something that is out of my control.”
The senior director of the MLB game franchise for Sony called Smith in response to his letter. He told Smith how grateful they were for Smith’s expression of gratitude. “[He said] ‘we would like to make your dream of being a baseball player even more a reality,’” Smith said.
Thus followed a trip to the studio in San Diego, where Smith had his head scanned with a 360 degree camera and his voice recorded.
Sony even agreed that his player, which bears his name, will continue in the game every year until the franchise ends. This means that how Smith performs in his virtual MLB season this year will affect the statistics of Hans Smith the baseball player in next year’s game, just as with real Major League players. “This is like my rookie year,” Smith said.
Even as he begins his baseball career, Smith is tries to avoid placing too much emphasis on himself. “I think what [this article] does more than [telling] my glamorous story is showing the power of gratitude,” Smith said. “It’s the power of saying thanks.”
Smith is also thankful to God for blessings he has received. “Several times I have actually prayed to Heavenly Father and told Him how thankful I am that I can play baseball,” Smith said.
When he begins his season sometime after the game is released on March 2, Smith says he plans on entering the draft. His player is a catcher. He will then play the season, never compromising the reality of the experience or his 13 credit homework load by playing more than one game per day.
At least one pre-season game will give friends and potential fans the opportunity to see their player up close and in person. The Reading Center, where Smith works part time, plans to have a party for him when the game comes out, said Department Faculty Julie Engstrom. There will be a big-screen baseball field to boot, and Smith is looking forward to some spectators. “One thing I can’t simulate in a baseball game,” Smith said, “is the crowd.”