As Martrell Stevens smiled with young children at the New Life Celebration Church of God in Dolton, he draped his bronze medal from the 2025 FISU University games onto a young boy.

Stevens, who was paralyzed from the waist down as a 4-year-old when his spine was shattered by a stray bullet in May 2008 in Englewood, came to the church Friday to donate school supplies to more than a dozen elementary school students.

What Stevens didn’t know was that dozens of community members would be on hand to surprise him Friday afternoon. He was presented with a custom Bulls jersey by former Bulls Bobby Wilson and Mickey Johnson and a basketball signed by current guard Coby White.

“I was just overwhelmed with his story,” Wilson, 74, said. “There’s so many of our kids under pressure and they’re attack

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