NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – “Wild Bill’s Amazing Kids” wins an Emmy for WGNO News with a Twist features guy Wild Bill Wood and Photojournalist Justin Abshire.
Altogether, this storytelling team brought home four Emmys this awards season.
One of the award winners is the story of a New Orleans kid who’s a basketball dribbling dynamo.
When you sit with a classroom of first graders, you discover where one of them really wants to be.
She’s Jaliyah Manuel. And the place she wants to be is the basketball court.
Jaliyah was born with a basketball in her hands.
WGNO News with a Twist features guy Wild Bill Wood gets a 2017 Emmy nomination for the story he and photojournalist Justin Abshire did about this superstar.
Wild Bill says there’s a reason Jaliyah is so good. The reason is her dad, Jovan Manuel.
Before she could talk, before she could walk, her dad who also happens to be Jaliyah’s coach, had her out in front of their home.
Out there because that’s where the basketball court was. And that’s where the basketball court is.
That’s why Jaliyah is a a dribbling dynamo.
She’s a star with not just one basketball, she’s a star with two. That’s two basketballs. That’s one in each hand.
She’s just six years old. She was born with a basketball in both of her hands.
She even sleeps with a basketball every night. That’s after she brushes her teeth.
She’s got 65 million hits from her internet videos. What she does in the videos is dribble a basketball.
When she’s not an internet star, she’s a student. Jaliyah goes to Belle Chasse Primary School, near New Orleans.
WGNO News with a Twist features guy Wild Bill Wood not only gets the story and gets an Emmy nomination , he gets a lesson on the court from Jaliyah.
Jaliyah’s dad has had her on the basketball court since she was just one. That’s why she’s a star.
But it all leaves her mom wondering if little girl who calls her mom is actually, maybe from Mars!