this is "nightline." tonight, coach rob. >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who says i can't? >> the definition of inspiration born with no arms, no legs but filled with love for the game of football. conquering life's obstacles. a journey that has taken him from the high school field to the global stage. >> you really can go places in this world. >> bringing the crowd to its feet and to tears. plus, mayor pete plays guitar, speaks seven languages. and is the first openly gay democratic presidential candidate. but will racial tensions at home trip up his hopes for the white

house? and dances with bus. the nfl player's wild move in a different kind of stadium. and surprise, it's not his first time trying to be an amateur matador. but first, the "nightline" five. honey, this gis ridiculously fast. we are seriously keeping up with the joneses.

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us. you might have seen it, the standing ovation and stirring speech at the espys. the biggest names in sports honoring their hero. a high school football coach born with no limbs but fully embracing life. we first encountered rob mendez earlier this year and saw a soul full of strength and resilience. >> coach rob mendez! >> reporter: it was a moment that brought everyone to their feet. and rob mendez jr., a high school football coach, born with out arms or legs came on the stage. a moment at last night's espys that should have been impossible. >> it's honestly been hard for me to fathom receiving this award, to be recognized alongside heroes. if there's any you guys is to look how far it's gotten me. >> reporter: the road full of heartbreak, faith and football. >> at this time i want to introduce to you a coach that i hired, because i was impressed

with his knowledge of the game. your new coach, rob mendez. [ applause ] >> reporter: mendez was born may 9, 1988 with a rare condition known as tetra melia. >> it was really, really awful. i didn't have a chance to have aabortion. >> i didn't see robert for about two weeks, because i didn't know what to do. >> but he's different. he sees people staring as an opportunity. >> robert was just a really easy child. and he just was really, really

happy. >> what's your favorite team? >> san francisco 49ers. >> he's got a gift that doesn't require him to be physical. making him aware of that, i think he just took the ball and ran. >> i think the most difficult part of having no arms and legs is simply not being able to play sports. i don't show it. i'm good at not showing it. i get mad. i get mad at god, i get mad at the lord. why? >> his freshman year, he was standing behind the fence at a distance watching practice. that was the beginning. >> we wanted to get him involved in the program. so we invited him to be our manager. >> they obviously knew i couldn't play, but to include me, it made me feel a part of it. it made me feel, i guess you can say, normal. >> he paid attention to us as coaches, but he learned the game. he created game plans on madden and then come to practice and

try to create the same game plans and execute them the same way. >> reporter: for 12 years, rob worked as an assistant, waiting for a head coaching opportunity. then in 2014, a school hired him to be the offensive coordinator of their jv team. it was a chance to prove himself. >> it was my first game going into the second half. the head coach wanted me to change the play calling style and run the ball more. we had to score one more touchdown. and we lost 35-14. and the part that really rubbed me the wrong way was that he put the blame on me in front of the kids. i mean, after only one game, i was out of a job. i stayed in my room for two days. i was sad, and i didn't know if i was going to ever be a head coach or if i was going to continue coaching. >> reporter: but as rob does, he picked himself up, carried on, and in april 2018 interviewed for his first head coach position with the prospect high school junior varsity team.

>> when i go to an interview for a job, scare is not the right word but surprise them. and i don't know how they're going to take the surprise. >> as he rolls out, to be brutally honest, when i first saw that is correct i was like, how can that guy coach? and he comes close, and says give me a fist pump. and all those nerves melted away. >> i know i've been ready for it. i've been overlooked and finally somebody gave me the opportunity. >> their is my 13th year coaching and i can't wait to get to know every single one of you. believe in yourself, believe in your teammates and believe in what you're doing. >> if you're taken back, that's natural and human. but after the first two seconds it's just a normal guy. >> though he may not look like a coach, he definitely acts like one. >> what we're going to teach right now is called 31 zone. >> on his phone, he can diagram a play faster thanki do with pen

and paper. >> there's definitely doubters out there like parents, my son is getting coached as a quarterback from a guy who has no arms and no legs. that lights a fire under my butt. >> one thing i care about is being a family. if you can't show love on this football field you better get off of it. >> things i take for granted like brushing your teeth, washing your face, going to the restroom, taking a shourwer, robert needs someone to help him. but he's tough. >> me being called has been my motivation. >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who says i can't originally came from me just having a drive

to accomplish whatever people doubted me for. >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> yeah! >> he's willing to do all of that, what are we willing to do? >> keep it up, let's go! >> reporter: after losing their first game, prospect went on to win seven in a row, outscoring their opponents 151-132. >> he really has done a job i haven't seen other coaches do at that level before. >> remember this! i'm proud of every single one of you. but damn it, we're not done yet! >> gone the distance, and it's good! they take the division title for the win this afternoon over prospect. >> it's okay. don't worry about it. >> i really sincerely want you guys to understand how much i appreciate this. >> our opponents, they'd always doubt him, because they see a man in a wheelchair.

to us, we see our coach. who's perfect. >> when i'm pushing him off the field after games, it makes me feel like proud to have him as my coach. >> i love those kids, and i'm always going to remember them. >> i think we make a perfect team. can we agree on that? >> yes, coach! >> can we agree on that? >> yes, coach! >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who says i can't? >> nobody! >> who saying i can't! >> nobody! >> yeah! >> reporter: back at the espys, the true titan in the room unleashed one last battle cry. >> who says i can't? nobody! yeah! [ applause ] >> you can watch rob mendez's full speech from the espys on espn.com. up next, will racial tensions back home cut short the

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if yhe were to pete buttigieg would be the youngest president ever. the openly-gay millennial is attracting attention but not for the right reasons, under fire for racial tensions back home. here's matt gutman. >> reporter: pete buttigieg is not your typical presidential candidate. he plays impromptu guitar and piano gigs and speaks seven languages, including arabic.

of course his is better than mine. >> you're good. >> reporter: he's a rhoads scholar who served as a naval intelligence officer in afghanistan and the mayor of south bend, indiana for the past seven years. >> so the whole downtown is undergoing this renaissance that we're trying to keep balanced with the need to invest in the neighborhoods. >> reporter: at 37 ma lynnial, he has a strength, like his name. now winking, an inside joke among his supporters and his sexual orientation, the openly-gay politician puts it on center stage. >> realistically, do you think this country is ready for a gay president? a >> there's only one way to find

out. >> it's simple enough to put on a bumper sticker. freedom, security and democracy. >> reporter: relatively unknown when he announced, he quickly became a buzzy candidate for the nomination. >> we've been able to go from total on security to leading the entire democratic field in fund raising and vaulting to the top five among the candidates. >> reporter: our visit comes at a pivotal time for buttigieg who's been running or his record as mayor. in recent weeks, that record called into question over allegations he hasn't done enough for his city's african-american community. >> i have black supporters and black critics in this community. but in the end of the day, i wouldn't have gotten reelected in this community without black support. >> reporter: but his support among african members dipped. >> a south bend police officer shot and killed a suspect sunday morning. >> reporter: could now be at a new low following the june 6th

shooting of eric logan by a white police officer who alleges logan approached him with a knife and ignored several orders to drop it. >> if you're saying it's not good enough. you're right. >> reporter: the city has provided no corroboration of those claims to the public. >> the story that was reported by the police department, it just didn't add up to a lot of residents here. he wasn't known to be somebody who would carry a knife. he wasn't known to be someone who would challenge the police. >> reporter: this in a city whose population is 25% african-american, roughly 35% living in poverty. he held a town hall in south bend, residents confronted him. >> i aim raising a 7-year-old grandson that when he sees the police he is afraid. that is not what's supposed to happen in america, in indiana in 2019. >> reporter: the issue becoming a flash point in the first democratic debate on nbc. >> the police force in south bend is now 6% black in a city

that is 26% black. why has that not improved over your two terms as mayor? >> because i couldn't get it done. >> reporter: why did you respond that way? >> because it was the truth. it may or may not be good politics, but i think if i'm going to talk proudly of all the achievements we've made we have to talk about where we've fallen short. >> that's the policy and someone died. >> reporter: what was going through your mind when you began to answer that and got stumped. >> i wasn't stumped. >> reporter: you were quiet. >> i was. sometimes the better part of valor is restraint. >> reporter: what actually gets through the veneer and into your gizzards? >> one of the reasons i've learned to be very disciplined in how i speak and how i act is because i'm really passionate about the work that i do and about the country we live in. so i try, i try to make sure that i don't get carried off into saying or doing something i'd regret of. >> reporter: what hurts you?

>> well, it hurts me to see people suffer. it hurts me to confront the possibility that that's being made worse by something that i'm part of. the things that bother me most are the moments when i realize i might have done something differently. >> reporter: today butte general announcing his douglass plan in part through criminal justice reform and investing in black america. >> when black americans experience true freedom and justice every american is better off. >> reporter: butte general's teacher and supporter says she's always known him to face a challenge head on. >> one thing about peter is he continues to learn. he will take someone's suggestion and explore it to see if there's a better way of doing something. he will always reevaluate, and he is not going to abandon any project, because if it is good for the people and going to improve their lives, that's what it's about. >> reporter: butte general wigi

running for his second term as mayor when he maid the risky decision to come out. >> people were more interested in the fact that the city was coming back in the way that i had served this community. i believe the same will happen at the national level. >> today we're going to introduce the mayor. >> it is important to him that his city thrive and reach its potential. more importantly, i think the city did not believe in itself before peter became mayor of south bend. that was his first task. how do you get the city to believe in itself again? and the city does believe in itself. >> reporter: as mayor, he's distinguished himself by using technology and data to governor. the self-avowed technology junky has caught silicon valley's attention. a chunk of buttigieg's last round of fund raising came from big tech. is breaking up some of the big tech companies something you would support? >> potentially. i think we see evidence of appoi

anti-competitive behavior, and the federal trade commission needs to deal with that. i don't think candidates or presidents need to think about companies to break up. >> reporter: he is outraising every other candidate with a bank-busting $25 million just in the past three months. abc news' poll has him tied for fifth place. >> there's something about our message that matters. and i think what it is is people are ready for something different. >> reporter: do you think you're ready to be president right now? and if so why? >> i didn't think i would run for president if i didn't think i was ready. what we need now is leadership that can recognize the accelerating pace of change. if we're not dealing with the causes we're never going to be able to deal with the symptoms. what we need is a president who looks into the future and recognizes what implications those changes will play out across my lifetime have for the present, the decisions we're making right now. >> reporter: if you don't get the nomination, what do you do?

>> my plan is to win. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm matt gutman in south bend, indiana. next, the football player grabbing the off season bit horns. [ dogs barking ] what about him? let's do it. [ sniffing ] come on. this summer, add a new member to the family. hurry into the mercedes-benz summer event today for exceptional offers. lease the glc 300 suv for just $419 a month at the mercedes-benz summer event. going on now. what sore muscles? what with advpounding head? .. advil is... relief that's fast. strength that lasts. you'll ask... what pain? with advil.

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and finally tonight, the pro football player out of his league. washington redskins cornerback josh norman is having quite the off season in the annual running of the bulls in pamplona, spain he showed nerves of steel, jumping over this charging bull! showing off similar moves when as "ncg with t ishe tt coetion in sond e.l. that's "nightline" for tonight. you can always catch our full episodes on hulu. good ni goodnight, america.

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