Michigan teen who carried brother gets honored by Sports Illustrated
At the end of every year, Sports Illustrated honors athletes in several ways. But this year, they started a new category and it went to a southeast Michigan teenager.
Hunter Gandee was named the Sports Illustrated Student Athlete of the Year on Monday.
Gandee walked 57 miles with his brother on his back to raise awareness for mobility issues. His brother, Braden, has Cerebral Palsy, a physical disability preventing him from walking without assistance.
On June 5, Hunter, with Braden on his back, walked the 57 miles from Douglas Road Elementary to U-M Pediatric Rehabilitation Center. The walk, called "Cerebral Palsy Swagger", took him a bit more than two days to complete.
The walk was one of two that helped pay for a wheelchair-friendly playground in Temperance, Mich.
The 2014 walk - 40 miles long - raised $16,000 in donations and it was donated to University of Michigan’s Cerebral Palsy Research Consortium.
Then more kept coming. Eventually, more than $200,000 poured in and the idea to build the structure was hatched. In October, it was complete. Click here to read the story from Sports Illustrated.