A lesson for us allJohntell Franklin’s mother had died earlier that day, February 7th. She was 39 and lost her five year battle with cervical cancer. Johntell was the captain of the Milwaukee Madison High School basketball team. When the coach of the team, Aaron Womack Jr., asked Johntell if he should cancel that night’s game, Johntell said no, “tell the guys to go out and do their best.”

Everyone was very surprised when Johntell showed up in the second quarter of the game. He arrived wanting to play, to be part of his team. “I knew my Mom would have wanted me to play. She was always proud of me playing basketball.” But his coach hadn’t listed Johntell’s name on the game roster because he didn’t think Johntell would be at the game. The rules are that if a player is not on the roster, he can play but it causes a technical foul.

When the coach of DeKalb, Dave Rohlman, heard this he said his team didn’t want the foul but the referees said that was the rule and there was nothing they could do about it. So after arguing with no success for seven minutes, he sent one of his players up to the line after a brief team meeting. Darius McNeal stood at the foul line and rolled his two shots across the floor. “I did it for the guy who lost his mom,” McNeal said. “It was the right thing to do.” Everyone in the gym stood and applauded.

Madison went on to win the game but there is no question that DeKalb showed that they are winners too.

Meanwhile in Washington, DC, Senator Sherrod Brown was mourning the death of his mother, who died of leukemia at the age of 88. Her wake was the day of the stimulus vote but Senator Brown’s vote was needed to pass the bill. Senator Brown had to leave the wake and fly from Ohio to Washington, DC so that he could cast the deciding 60th vote. Senator Brown could have stayed with his family in Ohio if just one Republican Senator had turned aside politics and cast an aye vote.