agentsquirrel.com

Good Sportsmanship

Posted by Agent Squirrel on February 19, 2009

With all the terrible news we all hear, it is heartwarming to hear a feel good story every once in a while. This one involves two high school basketball teams, Milwaukee Madison High School and DeKalb High School in Illinois.

Recently the two teams played a basketball game. Earlier that day, Johntell Franklin, one of the player’s for Madison High School lost his mother to cancer. Because the coach and many of the players wanted to be with him, they were late getting to the game. DeKalb High School had driven 2 1/2 hours to play the game but Coach Dave Rohlman offered to cancel. The Madison Coach, Aaron Womack Jr. declined. Since Franklin wasn’t there, he only had eight players, but they still decided to play the game.

In the second quarter, Franklin showed up and wanted to play. The officials informed Coach Womack that Franklin wasn’t on the roster and they would have to accept a technical foul. He accepted it. The DeKalb coaches however did not want to take the foul shots. Officials told them they had no choice.

Darius McNeal, the Senior Point Guard, said he would take the free throws. McNeal threw the ball a few feet in the air and it then bounced on the ground. He repeated this for his second free throw. After the second shot, the crowd gave McNeal a standing ovation.

“Any one of my teammates would have done the same thing, and I think anyone on the Madison team would have done the same for us,” McNeal was quoted as saying.

As I said, it is nice to hear about something positive in the current situation most of us find ourselves in. I have played sports and have been involved with youth sports programs. The drive to win often takes over good sportsmanship. It is great to know that sportsmanship still shows up now and again.

You can read more about this at the LA Times and the International Herald Tribune.

Rachel Maddow talked about this story on last nights show and I posted a video of it on YouTube.