blind in sight but not blind of victory

Matt Steven is like most other teenagers. He loves being around people his age, he loves to compete, he loves to be a part of the crowd, and he has hobbies. His favorite hobby is basketball, which is not that unusual unless you have faced what Matt Steven has faced. Since birth, Matt has been blind, because of two detached retinas. In the fifth grade he had one eye removed and in the sixth grade he had the other eye removed. Over the last few years he has begged his parents to let him go to the school that his brother goes too. Not long after his parents gave in, Matt decided he wanted to be a part of the basketball team. He went to every practice, attended every game, listened to every instruction by the coach and cheered the team on from the bench. Then one day his older brother decided that during a fundraiser game that it would be cool if Matt could shoot every free throw. The other team agreed to letting him shoot ever free throw. How did he do? Matt made the first two and ended up going 4 for 8...then at the end of the game, his team had come back, the best player got fouled while being down by 1 point...and suddenly guess who finds himself at the free throw line with 2 free throws to shoot? Matt Steven! That's right, the team let Matt Steven shoot the final second free throws and Matt calmly stepped to the line and nailed them both. Matt Steven's team won the game and Matt was the hero! Matt may be blind but that day he saw and felt victory in a new and bright way. Is there anything that God is calling you to do that seems to be too difficult? -Casey (original story written by Rick Reilly at http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3967807)

character and sportmanship trumps winning for one magic night

A few weeks ago the DeKalb, ILL boys' basketball team traveled 2 1/2 hours to Milwaukee to play a regular season basketball game. This rivaled matchup was a close game throughout but behind the scenes life was winning. Just a few hours earlier a member of the home team, senior guard Johntell Franklin, had lost his mother to a fight with cancer. (She was only 39 yrs of age.) J. Franklin had shown up to "watch" the game right before halftime. Later in the game, the grief stricken youngster decided that he wanted to play in his mother's memory. The only problem was that his name was not in the official scorebook because his coach had not expected him to be there. The technical foul was issued on the team even though the DeKalb high school coach had begged the refs to overlook the infraction. That's when Caoch Rohlman asked for volunteers (pictured above), and one of his best player's hand went up. The player from DeKalb went to the free throw line (at the request of his coach) and shot both free throws several feet short of the goal! It didn't take long for the Milwaukee players (Franklin's team) to figure out what was going on. They stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of character and sportmanship. "I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal (the free throw shooter) told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It was the right thing to do!"
Ever been caught between the right thing and the winning thing? Have you ever had to struggle with having character and getting promoted? Doing right or getting a raise? Having integrity or losing opportunity? What would you have done? How can you live with character and do the "right thing" this week? -Casey C.