MONDAY UPDATE: A photo below of the Carters at the big game with the big dog.

Part of today’s Super Bowl extravaganza was the result of a season-long contest for people to submit the best stories on why they love football.

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In the end, the winners included Nate Carter, 13, of Hope, Arkansas, who got the news from another favorite son of Hope, former President Bill Clinton.  

You can find the winners here in documentary glory, with Nate’s story at minute 22:15

It’s the moving story by NFL Films of a pint-sized quarterback for the Hope junior high football team stricken with a rare blood disease that required putting him in a two-week coma for treatment. The community rallied. Tears and cheers greeted his return to the field the next season, to shouts of “Miracle!” when he completed his first pass.

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President Clinton delivered by TV the happy news of Carter’s selection as a winner on Jan. 12. I love the part where a young voice in the crowd says when Clinton’s image fills the screen, “We know him!” Carter and his parents Anthony and Bitsy won tickets to today’s game.

Feel-good stories like that abound in the film, from which the photos were grabbed.

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