Blake takes it strong to the hoop

“That was a-mazing!” Blake Hodge said the words deliberately, with emphasis. It was clearly the most, well, amazing thing he’d ever seen in his life.

The 6-year-old’s basketball coach, Jeff Fife, had called a timeout to set up the play. Blake was on the high block left of the foul line. A teammate in the low block was to crash up toward him to set a pick and free Blake for an open look at the rim.

The play worked as designed, and Blake had his open look.

With his contacts in, he has 20-140 vision, a vast improvement over the 20-740 vision that he was born with.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I really didn’t expect him to make a basket in a game. And now he’s made a few baskets in games. He’s doing so much more than we expected,” said his mother, Tonya Hodge, who admitted being “worried” when Fife, the executive director of the Waynesboro Family YMCA, asked her last year if she’d consider letting her son play in the Y rec league. Read more