LINCOLN, Maine (WABI) – In football, a touchdown counts for six points.

Although each carries a different weight in its emotional value to a player in the context of a game, a season or their career.

A young football player recently scored a touchdown that he and his family will never forget.

“Kellan is an extraordinary boy. He was diagnosed early on on the autism spectrum. We knew right away he wasn’t hitting normal milestones, but he’s come a long way. He really likes to try new things and he doesn’t like to talk a lot, as you can see, but he loves sports,” said Darrell Dill Jr., Kellan’s father.

One of these sports in particular is football.

“Every Sunday we watch the Patriots. I’m a 49ers fan. We watch every 49ers game. On Saturdays we watch college football, if that. And we try to go to all the high school football games on Friday nights,” Dill Jr. said.

Kellan is a member of the Mattanawcook High School football team.

And recently, he got his chance to shine.

“You know, you start from a place where you don’t think you’ll ever see that, and the fact that his coaches and his teachers and his teammates were able to put that in place for him, it’s probably one of the most great moments of my life,” Dill Jr. said.

“You know how grateful I am, first of all, to his teacher, Matt Brown, he organized everything for us, got him involved in practices and talked with his college coaches. The coaches are amazing, Coach Mac, Coach Luhan. They worked with Kellan, helping him get into some exercises and workouts. And then the teammates, you know, just take them under their wing and help him out and show him that he’s definitely part of the team,” Dill Jr. said.

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