Kris and Pat Cropsey, the parents of Tyler Cropsey, submitted the following as a letter to the editor. Thisweek editors decided to publish this in the news section as a Thanksgiving Day feature.

Another football season has drawn to a close. Although the Eastview Lightning did not find themselves competing in the Metrodome for the state title, this is one family that considers the young men on this team to be champions, both on and off the field.

Our son Tyler will graduate from Eastview High School this year, and although Tyler has Down syndrome, no valedictorian or star athlete has had a more rewarding high school experience or has felt more a part of a school community. It began and ended with this group of extraordinary young athletes.

Few people point to 14-18 year old males as models of compassion, acceptance and kindness, and yet this is what we encountered when we entrusted our son to this group when he began his journey into high school four years ago. Even before he entered ninth grade, we asked if Tyler could help “manage” the ninth-grade football team, and so he spent many August days hanging out with incoming freshmen during grueling, two-a-day practices.

Some of these young men had gone to school with Tyler since kindergarten, some since middle school and others didn’t know him at all, but somehow they all seemed to welcome him and to embrace him and his participation on the team.

By that dreaded first day of school, Tyler was surrounded by those familiar faces and when that first lunch period came around, our fears of Tyler having to eat lunch all alone were never realized, because those football players stepped out of their own self-involved, first-day-of-high-school insecurities to enthusiastically invite Tyler to eat lunch with them.

For the next 4 years, Tyler would never have to eat lunch alone.

When we had a bonfire for Tyler’s birthday, we wondered if anyone would come, but to our surprise, 60-70 Eastview students, many or most of them football players, came to celebrate his birthday with him. When we offered two Vikings tickets to one of these young men who had been such a good friend to Tyler, and told him to take his dad or a brother or a friend to the game, he called and said that who he would really like to take to the game was Tyler.

These are the acts of extraordinary champions, models for us all of compassion, acceptance and kindness. Each year as a new class entered Eastview, the circle of inclusion seemed to grow, and new students and athletes, in part following the example of these young men, embraced Tyler and widened his circle of friendships.

Of course we understand that none of this happened in a vacuum.

There is a reason that each new crop of football players continued to accept and befriend Tyler.

This is a phenomenal football program from its head coach Kelly Sherwin to every ninth- and 10th-grade, junior varsity and varsity coach and assistant in the program.

Any parent who has been involved with this program knows that these are tremendous role models, who are more concerned with teaching these young men to be fine human beings than with their win-loss record.

Their example to their players of treating Tyler as “one of the guys” was instrumental in creating this environment of acceptance.

We would love to name every teacher, administrator and staff member by name who has been an integral part of Tyler’s incredible journey through Eastview, but we know that we would surely miss someone, and we are certain that we don’t even know all of them, as we continue to meet people every day in the Eastview community who have touched Tyler’s life in some significant way.

Coaches and teachers alone cannot create a memorable high school experience. We know that the credit extends beyond the boundaries of this program and even of this school building. Not only football players have transformed Tyler’s life.

Students in theater and choir and band and speech and from every walk of life have also extended the hand of friendship. Tyler cannot walk through the hallways or attend a class without feeling the warmth of acceptance offered freely by Eastview students.

At every athletic event or concert or theater performance we attend, people approach us to say how much they enjoy watching Tyler and his interaction with other students.

Tyler will never forget you and even if you never truly understand the magnitude of your gift to Tyler, the greatest gift of all: your friendship and your acceptance; we hope you understand how much you mean to Tyler and how much you mean to us.

Watch video of Tyler Cropsey helping out the Eastview football team.