The Return of Sportsmanship

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a Texas High School girl's basketball game that ended with a score of 100-0. I took the coach to task and said that he should not be fired because after all, if we fire him how will he ever learn? The teacher of this lesson just came out of a game in the upper Midwest.

A couple of weeks ago, Milwaukee Madison High School played DeKalb High School (Illinois) in Milwaukee. Be sure to follow the link below and read the whole article, but here are the salient points.

• The mother of one of the Madison prep stars, Johntell Franklin, was seriously ill. The Madison coach asked Johntell if he wanted the coach the cancel the game, Johntell said no, let them play.
• The coach set up to play. He did not put Johntell's name in the scorebook. This is important for those of you who do not know basketball rules.
• The game was played, but it started a couple of hours late.
• Johntell came to the game during the second quarter. But he didn't feel like he could be a spectator, he suited up because he wanted to play.
• Coach put Johntell into the game.

This is where the rules take effect. If a player enters the game who is not in the scorebook, it is a technical foul and the other team gets two free throws. When Johntell entered the game, the foul was called.

Well, DeKalb didn't want it. They all knew what was going on and nobody on the DeKalb team wanted to accept the foul--not the players and not the coaches. When DeKalb tried to reject the foul, the referees said they could not do that. Rules are rules.

The Madison coach was dejected, knowing two easy points were going to hit the board. He had his team huddled around, so he almost missed it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the DeKalb shooter roll the ball off of the ends of his fingertips rolling gently past the end line. The second time he watched it happen.

The DeKalb coach came to terms with the fact that his team would get the two shots. He did not come to terms with benefitting from another's grief. The DeKalb coach asked his players who was going to take the shot and then told him, "You know you're going to miss it, right?"

If you win 100-0, you'll win a basketball game. Missing these two shots has made the sports world take notice that sportsmanship is not dead. There are more important things.
For the number of times I have heard and read this story, there is one thing I have not heard reported. Who won.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article can be found at this link.