Finally, A Good Sportsmanship Story!
Posted by The Little League Coach on 02 May 2008 at 12:33 am | Tagged as: General
I first heard about this story on Good Morning America , and you can see and read about it on CBS in this article "Unbelievable" Act of Sportsmanship . The story that follows is almost unbelievable in today’s day and age, but it provides hope for all of us that dedicate so many long hours to the development of character and sportsmanship.
A Real Tear Jerker
I showed this story to a coworker of mine this morning and it made her cry! I have to admit, it brought a swelling to my eyes when I first heard it, and it still gives me goose bumps .
The Homer
Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University had never hit a home run in her life. Not in high school , not in college, not ever over the fence. Saturday she did! Over the center field fence. The girl missed first base , probably with all the excitement. When she went back to touch it, her knee blew out! It was all she could do to crawl back to first.
Then the magic happened. Central Washington’s firstbaseman, WOU’s opponent, asked if her teammates could carry her around the field. This after the umpire had ruled that her own team couldn’t help her or she would be called out.
The Act
So Holtzman and Shortstop Liz Wallace picked her up and carried her around the bases! Stopping to allow her to touch each base. The amazing part was that they didn’t know that Tucholsky was a senior, nor did they know that this was her first ever home run! They simply felt this was the right thing to do! (Boy did they have some good coaches growing up!)
The Irony
NOW FOR THE MOST AMAZING PART!
The three run homer won the game for WOU and eliminated any chance of Central Washington winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs! Nobody would have blamed them if they had not done this, in fact, nobody would have really even thought they should have done this, but they did this even though it eliminated them from contention!
I challenge ANY Little League coach to even come close to that story. I know I can’t and I insist on sportsmanship from my players, I will tolerate no less. But I don’t know if any of them would do this. Who would think to do something like that? Amazing. If anyone has a story that even closely resembles this, please let us know, this is a tough act to follow though!
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Excellent story. Thanks for passing it along. Kudos to Holzman and Wallace, and their parents and coaches, and the rest of the team, for making this moment possible. It’s a living example of ‘first things first’–sportsmanship before winning, kindness before competition.
It is simply amazing if you ask me. Like I said, I don’t know that I, or any of my players, would have even thought to do this, much less actually done it.