OT: Football player takes momma to prom!

On the gridiron, while punishing opposing quarterbacks with his 6-foot, 3-inch, 330-pound frame, Salmen High School’s Malcolm Pichon has been called lots of names. salmen-prom-student-mom.jpgView full sizeScott Threlkeld, The Times-PicayuneSalmen senior Malcolm Pichon will be taking his mother, Michelle, to the prom Saturday night because she wasn’t able to attend hers 20-plus years ago. Most likely, "Teddy Bear" was not one of them. Off the field, however, the bruising defensive end, who will play football for Louisiana Tech next fall, is one big softie. Michelle Pichon never has had trouble finding the gentle, compassionate side of her son. So when Malcolm asked his mom to his prom because she couldn’t attend her own 20-plus years ago, it didn’t surprise her that much. Despite being honored by the offer from her son, Michelle Pichon, who dropped out of Slidell High before her senior year, tried to talk him out of it. "You need to take your girlfriend," she repeated, over and over. Her son, however, was hearing none of it. "I wasn’t going to go if I couldn’t bring her," he said. So, amid the pomp and circumstance of the end of his high school years, he will do just that on Saturday night at the Northshore Harbor Center in Slidell. "When he asked me, I put it off and asked him what his classmates would say," Michelle Pichon said. "He said, ‘Mom, I have never worried about what anybody ever said about me.’ I told him I wanted his senior year to be special, and he said, ‘I can’t think of a better way to spend my prom than with you.’ " Of course, Malcolm then had to explain to his girlfriend of 18 months that he was taking his mother to the prom instead of her. He said it wasn’t that tough a sell. "We talked it about it the other day, and she wants to come, but she understands why I did what I did," he said. Shortly after, Malcolm announced his prom date on his Facebook page, and interestingly enough, just about all of his fellow classmates who publicly responded thought the big man had come up with an outstanding idea. At least, there wasn’t anyone brave enough to say anything to the contrary. No matter how sentimental the gesture, he still had to get approval from the school administration, which as a rule that does not allow anyone older than 21 to attend the prom. "Malcolm told me he was going to bring his mom to prom, and I thought he was joking because he can be a little silly," said Salmen Principal Terri Wortmann. "He said, ‘I’m serious,’ and I told him it was OK, and I was thinking sometimes parents will show up to take pictures or whatever. "I told him I would make an exception for his mom," Wortmann said with a laugh, "and it’s kind of gone from there. "I’m kind of excited about it. I think it will be fun for everyone to have her there. … Malcolm is such a good boy. His size just puts him in the middle of everything, and sometimes all people can see in a crowd is him. Kids flock to him, but I can genuinely tell that he is close to his family, not just to his parents, but his cousins, everyone." And not only will Michelle Pichon attend the prom, but she’ll do so in the dress her daughter, Ashley Crawford, wore to her graduation five years ago. "For some reason, she threw it away. It was a beautiful dress, and I took it out of the trash and said I was going to save it, never knowing what I was saving it for," Pichon said. "She didn’t know, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. She kept bugging me to go look for a prom dress, and I kept saying, ‘Ashley, leave me alone; I’ll go when I’m ready.’ "Finally I told her that I have my dress, and when she asked where it was, it was at the cleaners, and I had a picture of it on my phone. She said, ‘Mama, you’re wearing a dress just like I wore.’ And then it dawned on her, ‘Oh no, that’s my dress!’ Things work in strange ways, because I didn’t know why I was saving the dress. Now, I know." Still, for Pichon, while the prom will be an experience she likely won’t forget, it’s just another in a long line of kind gestures from her gentle giant of a son. "You don’t see that everywhere today," she said. "To have a son that’s 6-3, 300-plus pounds, that says, ‘Yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir,’ and that’s to any and everybody. You don’t see that. Trust me when I tell you that I am truly blessed." http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/04/salmen_senior_gives_his_mom_so.html ___________________________________________________________________ SHOUT OUT TO THIS YOUNG MAN! You don’t see or hear a lot of stories like that but this guy deserves some recognition. It’s funny, you imagine a 6’3" 330 lb man being a monster on the field but he’s an absolute class act off the field. Players don’t get recognized like that but I’ll show him some love. What he did was classy and I like seeing not just athletes but PEOPLE being unselfish in general. For every bad person out there, there is a good, warm-hearted person out there. Hopefully, he rubs off on some of those bad people.