According To Kurz...Doing The Right Thing

This week the most used word in the American language has been “steroid”. I am so sick of hearing this word that I am now going to refer to it as, “the s-word”. But while “A-Roid” (as he is now being referred too), better known as Yankees third baseman, Alex Rodriguez, was giving his press conference and explaining how “young and dumb” he was at the age of 23, some decency was being displayed sports.

Milwaukee Madison senior basketball and football player, Johntell Franklin’s mother died of cancer on Saturday Feb. 7th. He originally decided he was going to miss his basketball game that night. He later changed his mind and wanted to play in the game against DeKalb (Ill.) High School. Because his coach, Aaron Womack Jr., had not planned for him to be there, Franklin’s name was not in the scorebook. Womack decided to play Johntell, knowing that the rules stated that the other team would be awarded two free throws. DeKalb coach, Dave Rohlman pleaded with the refs to not have the free throws assessed but the refs were just doing there job.

In response, Coach Rohlman gathered his team in order to decide who would shoot the free throws. Senior point guard, Darius McNeal put up his hand.

“You realize you’re going to miss, right,” explained Rohlman.

Darius nodded.

Darius set up to take his free throws with all the eyes in the arena on him. He brought the ball up to his forehead and rolled it across the out of bounds line. The ref picked up the ball handed it to the point guard. He did the same thing. The crowd rose to their feet and applauded the senior for his actions.

“I did it for the kid who lost his mom” McNeal told a Milwaukee newspaper. “It was the right thing to do.”

At the age of 17, Darius McNeal knew the right thing to do. A young man decided he was going to be selfless and miss those shots on purpose. I wonder what a 23 year old “A-Roid” would have done….