Reeve, the 48-year-old star of the highly successful Superman films, has been a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic since an equestrian accident in 1995 left him paralysed below the neck. For several years after the accident, Reeve could not breathe without a ventilator. Proving himself a gutsy superman in real life, he has vowed to take his first steps by the time he's 50 – on September 25, 2002. Turning out for the six-time NBA champion Bulls must surely be a step in the right direction to that lofty, yet admirable ambition.
Reeve not only turned up unexpectedly for the clash between the titans of the NBA, but crawled unaided and without the use of his ventilator onto the court for the 8pm tipoff as one of the starting five, a move that shocked Bulls players including Elton Brand, Khalid El-Amin, Toby Bailey and Corey Benjamin.
With Reeve refusing to budge and a capacity crowd at the John Denver Memorial Dome cheering him on, Bulls head coach Tim Floyd was forced to call off court his team's bemused centre Brad Miller.
"After five minutes, I pleaded with him (Reeve) to come off but he just looked over at me, shook his head and said, "no way!'," an exacerbated Floyd said later. "Now to my mind that takes a lot of guts."
One medical source who did not wish to be named said he believed Reeve had been experimenting with the amazing new drug, pseudo-methlyappleline-hydrate4-complexB2 version1.2, used almost exclusively by western countries at this year's Sydney Olympics to keep former Communist bloc nations and China in their place.
Reeve, who dominated the centre position for the entire game after it became obvious that whatever drugs he may have been taking had quickly worn off, finally came into his own just on the full-time buzzer when he was fouled when the Lakers' Shaquille 0'Neal tripped over him.
Long after the cleaners had plunged the Dome into darkness around midnight, Reeve early this morning was still making his way to the line for the first of his two free-throws.
With a lot of pride at stake, the Lakers had earlier won the closely contested battle 142-2.
