The world is not built for differently-abled people. In fact, it’s often built to exclude them.

For people like Jamarion Styles, the world is downright unwelcoming and occasionally cruel. Then again, this determined kid has managed to dust himself off and fight right back – all the way to the top, showing those who doubted him just how much he’s capable of.

Styles lost his arms when he was an infant after contracting a rare bacterial infection.

Of course, kids are resilient and amputees even more so – they can find a way to work around most endeavors that the rest of us can’t even imagine.

But other kids often don’t understand that. So when 13-year-old Styles wanted to play basketball at the nearby community center in Boca Raton, Florida, he would get rejected every week. At 13, that kind of exclusion is doubly hurtful.

“They would start picking teams and I would be the only one left out. And then they would just tell me ‘just go home.’ You can break someone’s heart like that,” the young man told CBS Evening News.

Our hearts are breaking just thinking about it!

But Styles didn’t give up – he wanted to play basketball – and he can shoot and dribble just fine!

So on his first day of class at Eagles Landing Middle School, he asked basketball coach Darian Williams if he could be on the team. The coach said he should absolutely try out – though he admits to wondering how it would all play out.

Styles was worried since he had never been invited to play on a team before and had no experience.

But he made it – and he proudly wore #2 throughout his middle school years.

The first year Styles played as an Eagle, he was the hardest working player on the team.

“He was usually the first one in the gym and usually the last one to leave,” his coach said.

But he sat on the bench during games. That is, until one March day when the coach put him in with 6 minutes left in the game.

Styles managed to get the ball and when the coach yelled “Shoot it!” he sank a 3-pointer. Before the end of the game, he got the ball again with seconds to go. He made a 3-point buzzer-beater.

Take that, doubters!

Styles became a local hero after that and started playing basketball AND volleyball at the community center.

He told CBS in 2018 that he was interested in trying out for football as well now that he’s in high school.

After everyone assumed that he might only ever be able to play soccer (a game where you’re discouraged from using your hands but that Styles insists that he’s “horrible” at), he’s living his sports dreams.

When asked if he wished he had arms, he simply said: “I don’t need them.”

Now that’s the attitude of a winner.

When CBS caught up with the teen last year he was a rising high school junior at Village Academy. He didn’t make the football team on his first try, but that didn’t discourage him from trying again.

“I think God is telling me I have something to prove,” he told local news channel WPTV in September of last year during practice.

That’s right – he made the team. And no one is giving him any special treatment.

That’s fine with Styles because he doesn’t need it.

Now, his goal is to earn a Division-1 scholarship in either basketball or football.

Be sure to scroll down below to see an interview from 2018 with CBS in which Styles talks about his tough road to becoming a student-athlete.

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Source: CBS Evening News (2018), CBS Evening News via YouTube, WPTV News via YouTube