The Right Thing to Do.

Perhaps because a vast majority of my life has been in or around athletics, stories about sacrifice and compassion in the sports world really get to me.

Well, HERE is another one.

For those of you who want the abbreviated version, here it is:

In a tight basketball game, two friendly, but heated, rivals were playing in the second quarter of a a high school game in Milwaukee. Dave Rohlman's team had just been awarded a technical foul. The individual who volunteered to shoot the free shows went up to the line and "...looked at the rim. His first attempt went about two feet, bouncing a couple of times as it rolled toward the end line. The second barely left his hand."

Horrible player. Nope. (Well, maybe as I don't have his stats on hand.) But the act was intentional. You see, Rohlman's Dekalb, Ill team was awarded the shots because the opposing team from Milwaukee had inserted a player into the game who was not on the pre-game roster. Was this a nefarious trick by the opposing team? Not at all. The player inserted into the line-up had shown up late to the game because he had, hours earlier, been at the bed of his mother who passed away from cancer. Showing up, he asked if he could play. His coach gladly let him which awarded Rohlman's team with the free throws.

After initially refusing the free throws, Rohlman was told he had to take them. Insert the airball thrower. It didn't take long for take long for the Milwaukee players to figure out what was going on.They stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.

"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It was the right thing to do."

Dekalb ended up losing the game. But do you really care who won? Look inward today and do something because "it was the right thing to do." You will end up winning regardless of the score.