disease. >> lou gehrig is appreciation day. >> reporter: in 1939, gehrig said an emotional good-byebaseball. >> today i consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. ( applause ) >> reporter: a.l.s.was already robbing him of control over his muscles. >> i might have been given a bad break, but i've got an to live for. thank you. ( applause ) >> reporter: gehrig died less than two years later. >> prior to the past year, my favorite activities have been backpacking and hiking and mountain biking. a lot of activities outdoors as well as jogging regularly. >> it's devastating to get that diagnosis. >> reporter: we first met dr. olney and his wife paula in 2005. als are already taken most of his ability to speak. somehow you can still laugh. >> yeah, yeah. we operate as a unit. >> reporter: back then his daughter amy was training to be an occupational therapist. his son nick was studying for entrance to medical school. >> i'm hoping to get into als research at the over end. >> thanks for stopping by. i have lou gehrig's disease and i have trouble speaking. >> reporter: knowi

he suffers from lieu lou gehrig's disease and didn't have a good prognosis at the time. >> we wantedmake jim's last season, because we thought it would be his last, a special one. >> what they couldn't imagine is the new york giants coach would show reynolds' determined finish to inspire his team. >> he saw holland on this internet set, and he said, this is what we need. keeping our goals ahead of and getting the job done. >> that was early last year when the giants were in a slump. now that the giants have won the super bowl, they were proud they may have been a part of the win. >> it was flattering they were looking to me for inspiration. >> san francisco university high school track team loves and respects their coach and wants to help him financially in his fight against lou gehrig's disease. go to abc7news.com and click on see it on tv. ama? >> thank you so much. >>> in international news, diplomats around the world are saying the syrian regime is doomed. they say it can never regain its legitimacy. it comes in the wake of a bloody weekend in syria. more then a hundred people we

francisco track team loveses and respects their coach and wants help him in his fight against lou gehrig'sish to donate go to abc7news.com click see it on tv. >>> inspiring story. it helped the giants win the super bowl, maybe it will help us in our lives. think about that. >>> traffic could come to a crawl possibly during the evening and overnight into tomorrow morning because of the rain on the way. 5:51 looking down from emeryville this morning to san francisco notice how clear it is now. let's take a look at what is going on as far as temperatures we are running right now temperatures are running in the 30s also we have many 40s out there. there we go, a little late but we're there we skipped over us most of us in the 40s to near 50°, 30s around santa rosa and fairfield. 45 santa cruz. upper 30s guillory 51 salinas. increasing clouds, mild today rain and breezy tonight showers lingering through tomorrow and dry and warmer starting with wednesday. let's start with our highs today even with the cloudy conditions this afternoon, low to mid 60s the breezes will be fastest over the ocean sm

. >>> a baltimore legend takes on lou gehrig's disease.rm that could bring storm your way. join us at 11. what do you have to say? >> who would think it. think back to saturday. you can get that brief mix even now. i want to show you a most card finish out at deep creek lake. a little snow on the ground. by tomorrow afternoon look for the weather to go down. we could see an inch, maybe up to two inches on the grass si areas but i -- grassy areas but i look for that to be north and west. >> world news is next.

he suffers from lou gehrig's disease and didn't have a good prognosis. >> we wanted to make jim's lasteason we thought would it be his last a special one. >> reporter: what they couldn't imagine is new york giants' coach would show reynolds's determined finish to inspire them. >> he saw holland on this internet clip and he said, this is what we need. keeping our goals ahead of us and getting the job done. >> reporter: that was early last year when the giants were in a slump. now that they've won the super bowl they are proud they may have been some part of that win. >> it was flattering that they were looking to me and jim foreinspiration, strange but cool. >> reporter: -- for inspiration. strange, but cool. >> reporter: they want to help the coach. if you wish to donate go to abc7news.com and click see it on tv. >>> she an inspiration she and her coach and on off the track, incredible. >>> you want to go for a jog later today, probably want to get it done early. >> before the sunsets probably the key. good morning. once the sunsets it will be easier for the rain to make it through the

at san francisco's university high school, jim tracey who had been diagnose nieced with als or lou gehrig's disease. >> now i have other athletes looking agent me and i never thought that would happen. >> they knew it was a video of her that the giants coach said set the tone for the game and the victory. >> i thought it was just crazy. because i neve really thought of like other athletes who were professional athletes using it for inspiration. >> reporter: a year later and jim tracey is still coaching at the high school, but he's having more trouble getting around and he's not sure how many more seasons he will have. >> my goal really is to be a healthy enough sick person so that i can contribute. >> reporter: both jim tracey and holland reynolds say the lesson for the rest of us is not 0 to give up, no matter what happens and to find the strength, deep inside of yourself to move forward. >> i say to myself, yeah, this is hard, but there are harder things. i must do my best and think of  what i want to do today. >> i was crawling for the love of my coach. i think that's something that peo

. >> i don't know if lou gehrig, my great idol, said it first, but i do know that he said it best. today, i feel like the luckiest person in the world. >> while he served his country in a number of ways, it wasn't until his accept acceptance speech at the 1998 g.o.p. convention that he began to define himself in political terms. >> i will keep america moving forward, always forward, for a better america, for an endless, enduring dream and a thousand points of light. this is my mission and i will complete it. >> that night, george bush called americans to step up and help their neighbors in a way government can't. and the phrase "points of light" entered the public discourse. more than 20 years later, thousands of people gathered in new orleans for the national conference on volunteering and service. and neil bush continued to promote his father's mission. >> he believed that by telling our stories of success, we can inspire and mobilize others to make a difference in their communities. >> while the focus of the conference was on ways to get people involved in service talso gave vol

he shared his battle with lou gehrig's disease with the students. he was diagnosed in 2007. he urged them to figure out how to make their weak, weaknesses into strength. some of them will run in his race. >>> the heat steal the spotlight from the knicks. nick's guard jeremy lin had a rough night. he made just one shot and here loses the ball to start the fast break. the heat win 102-88. anthony scored 19 points in the loss. >> yeah, let's talk about weather here. >> okay. >> 74 degrees today can you believe? >> no. >> neither can i. you know take a look at first warning weather doppler. we are just dealing with rain here but take a look at this graphic. we are in a mild flow -- it has been location all season long. just up to the north and there is some seriously unsettled weather. a big low front will pull a cold front through with maybe a couple of thunderstorms a high wind warning in effect from 3:00 on. it is going to get windy tonight with gusts of 45 to 50 miles an hour, clear in skies, 36, cooler, sunny, 50 tomorrow. ron matz, you know i have always -- how many times

or lou gehrig's disease.ut today, has life is as a wake-up call for 7th graders. >> they were talking trash to one another and it was escalating. >> reporter: the boys were mean to each other, calling each other names. >> they always make fun of people and i don't like it. >> reporter: their teacher, mr. gabeer needed someone like o.j. to get through to them. >> he is someone to normally turned what people saw as a deficiency into something more amazing that he could touch people. >> reporter: osm j. spoke with -- o.j. spoke with the boys through his special computer. he was diagnosed in 2007. and from that moment, he told the boys he decided not to let the disease stop him. he goes to work at the ravens headquarters every day and has raised more than $1 million in a.l.s. research. his message to the boys: figure out how to make your weakness a strength. >> i have enabled people to do greater things for a.l.s. than i ever did playing. >> he's turned a difficulty into something great. >> reporter: and these 7t

. >> i don't know if lou gehrig migrate idol said it first, but i do know that he said it best. today i feel like the luckiest person in the world. >> while he served his country in a number of ways, it wasn't until his acceptance speech at the 1988 gop convention that george bush began fully to define himself in political terms. >> i will keep america moving forward, always forward for a better america, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light. this is my mission, and i will complete it. >> that night george bush called americans to step up and help their neighbors in a way government can and the phrase points of lighten terred the public discourse. more than 20-years later thousands of people gathered in new orleans for the national conference on volunteering and service. neil bush continued to promote his father's mission. >> he believed that gby telling our stories of success we can inspire and mobilize others to make a difference in their communities. >> while the focus of the conference was to get people involved in service it also gave volunteers a cha

could be a huge step for people who can't speak like patients who suffered a stroke or who have lou gehrig's disease. pretty cool. >>> it is 5:42. let's see who's celebrating a birthday today. he played george jefferson. he's 74. princess stephanie is 47 and lisa marie presley is 44 today. >>> she stars as a hired killer on dexter. michael k. hall is 41. outcast rapper big boy is 37. and actress and designer lauren conrad turns 26 today. happy birthday if february 1 is your day, too. denny's new sizzlin' skillets are here for a limited time. so strike while the iron's hot. starting at $4.99. only at denny's. america's diner is always open. >>> good morning. welcome back to 9news now. 5:46. we're starting a new month with an incredible forecast and a little rain out there but don't dampen your spirits because of that. >> if you like to get outside, this afternoon will be drier. not that it will be very wet this morning but it will be drier and very mild once again. >> what i noticed too, you look at lawns and usually this time of the year everything is brown. lots of green lawns. >> what help

she said she did it because her coach was diagnosed with als, lou gehrig's disease.ed the new york giants to victory. >> i never really thought of like other athletes who were like professional athletes using it for inspiration. so, that was strange. i mean when the story went national a couple years ago jim and i thought that was strange, but now we have other athletes looking towards me and i never thought that would happen. >> the fact she had her goal and it's so deep inside her, that it occurred to her right away what to do. and i think -- i think this giants team i think this professional team, they needed to think about that they wanted to do and willing to do to do it. >> jim tracy says he's doing better than he expected he would and the effects of the disease are developing slowly. he says although he has pain and some difficulty getting around he's planning on coaching again this year at university high school. in fact, he says he has three assistants helping him. the school has set up a trust fund for him to cover his huge health care costs which ch are no

bay area is raising the possibility of speech to someone who is paralyzed, a stroke victim or lou gehrig's patient. tonight a closer look at how words are being measured as brain activity then break activity is being turned -- then brain activity is being turned around to imagine what those words might sound like. one word heard and measured in the brain. >> it's doing a lot more than just analyzing sound. >> reporter: researchers at uc- berkeley and ucsf are studying brain surgery patients who have had electrodes implanted in their brains and they are decoding the electrical activity when they hear a word, in this case the word structure. >> structure. >> reporter: researchers then attempt to reverse the process, take the brain activity and then have a computer model say the word. [ inaudible ] >> that's our best guess essentially. >> we're able to synthesize the sounds that we're guessing. 10 we're guessing what sound produces particular patterns of activity and one way to judge that is just it play it back and listen to it. [ inaudible ] >> reporter: he says the implications of the stud

, all these neurodeagain rattive disease including things like alzheimer and parkinson and even lou gehrig or als are diseases that seem to start in one part of the nervous system or brain and over time they seem to spread to other areas. so for all these disorders. >> rose: they may have the same spread process. >> the question is do they spread in this way that area a draw area b may be different parts of the brain, different proteins but if spreading is a unifying theme then that will open up novell therapeutic intervention because as you eluded to a potential therapeutic avenue would be to prevent the spread. >> rose: what is a potential way of depresenting the spread. >> basically there are two ways. if you think about howt spreads, we have two cells, abnormallal protein starts here. it's released outside the cell and it is picked up by e secretary cell so there are twways in which you can imagine doing that in a very, very general sense. you can prevent the first cell from releasing the bad stuff in this case tao or ou can prevent cell b from picking it up from absorbing it. >> rose:

lou gehrigyay -- gehrig's disease. >> they were talking trash to one another and it was escalating. >reporter: the boys had been mean to each other, calling each other names. >> they always make fun of people and i don't like it. >> reporter: their teacher needed someone like o.j. to get through to them. >> he is someone who took what people saw as a deficiency into a way to touch people. >> reporter: o.j. spoke to the boys through a special computer. brigants was diagnosed with a.l.s. in 2007. and from that moment, he told the boys he decided not to let the disease stop him. o.j. goes to work at ravens headquarters every day ask has raised more than $1 million in a.l.s. research. his message to the boy, figure out how to make your weakness a strength. >> i have figured out how to do greater things with a.l.s. than i ever did playing. he's turned a difficulty into something great. >> never forget that. the 7th graders plan to run in o.j.'s upcoming 5k race to raise money for a.l.s. research. sign up for the race. it's may 5th. >>> still to come tonight on wjz eyewitness news. turning

that's lou gehrig's disease. evidence that they're on the right track. >> we did not encounter any unexceptional side effect, even a minor one, except some mild fever for some hours. and no serious or adverse event in those subjected patients. >> up to date over 700 patients begging to be put on the trial. it comes to the level of -- people knock at my door. >> at your house? the office? >> at my house, even. at my house. even though i'm not part of the committee that decides which patients come, the committee works blindly. they don't know names of patients. they just look at the files. it's professors and others that sit at this committee. >> reporter: where in the world are they asking you from? >> from all over. you name the country. as i told you before, iran, pakistan. the u.s., many. >> reporter: from iran? >> yes. >> reporter: he felt it was very bullish that even folks from iran were trying to get ahold of this drug that in some way pharma can actually be a bridge across cultures. even in the situation t

and you also felt compelled to get up and cross the finish line for your coach, who contracted lou gehrig's>> all i knew is that my team and i really wanted to win for my coach and we believed it to be his last season and wanted to make the last season a great one and by winning, we'd have the most state championships in all of california. so, that was my goal. and all i wanted to do is cross the finish line. >> clayton: unbelievable and you managed to pick yourself up and get across the finish line and now we learn the new york giants and tom coughlin have used the video in the new york giants' locker room, an inspiration across their own finish line and, to get into the super bowl and get a victory. what did you think when you heard that? >> honestly i thought it was crazy. i never thought that this story would actually inspire professional athletes. i knew when this story went viral, a couple of years ago, it was strange, to me it was a national story and i never thought other athletes would actually be inspired by me. so i was just flattered. >> clayton: really touching, too, and more a