ESPN will update the story of the friendship and bond of two young athletes on the 10 a.m. ET SportsCenter on Sunday, July 7, on ESPN2. The new feature is one of the longest ever to air on ESPN’s flagship news and information program.

The feature also will air on “Outside the Lines” on Sunday, July 7, at 9 a.m. on ESPN2.

Four years ago, ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi profiled Cleveland high school wrestlers Dartanyon Crockett and Leroy Sutton. Sutton, who has no legs, and Crockett, who is legally blind, found strength and friendship through their challenges and both earned diplomas in 2009 from a high school with a graduation rate of less than 40 percent.

“A wrestler who couldn’t walk carried to matches by a wrestler who couldn’t see,” Rinaldi said in the original story, describing the two as “brothers more than wrestlers.”

However, as Rinaldi reports in the new feature, this is the story of that story; of what happened after ESPN’s cameras were done filming; and of how the producer, Lisa Fenn—through determination and love—made sure the story wasn’t over after it aired. ESPN producers felt the story was worthy of another chapter on three people who entered each other’s lives and became the unlikeliest of families.

“You can’t go into environments like this and earn the trust of two boys like this who have needs like this and just walk away,” Fenn, a Cleveland native who left ESPN in 2010, says in the feature. “I’m not going to be next on that list of people to break their trust.”

After the original feature aired on August 2, 2009, Fenn received more than 700 emails from people who wanted to help Crockett and Sutton go to college.

Crockett went on to become a member of the USA Judo team, earned a medal in the 2012 Paralympics in London, and now lives and studies in Colorado Springs, Col. His friend Sutton, now a college student in Phoenix, was in London to cheer him on. Their stories, and their close relationship with Fenn, are documented in the new feature.

“I know Lisa from her time at ESPN, and I knew she had remained in contact with Leroy and Dartanyon after the story aired back in 2009,” said Jose Morales, producer of the new feature for ESPN. “But once I fully understood the depth of their relationship, I felt their journey was worth a follow-up story.”

ESPN SportsCenter management had no qualms with the 21-minute length of the feature.

“We put no restrictions on our producers when it comes to their storytelling projects,” said Mark Gross, ESPN senior vice president & executive producer, production. “Whether it’s one minute, or 21, the ultimate goal is to present quality, entertaining and informative feature pieces, and we’re happy to carve out whatever time it takes to tell the best stories on television.”

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Media Contact: Andy Hall, 386-492-2246 or [email protected]

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