PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN HOWARD

I coached multiple sports when I was a teacher, and my teams were pretty successful. I coached in big games, had the opportunity to coach multiple ranked teams and even had the privilege of coaching basketball at the state tournament four times and golf at that same level five times. In fact, for nearly 10 years of my life, I coached three sports – football, basketball, and golf.

Never, in all my experience as a coach, had I seen what happened last Tuesday night before the Union boys’ district final game vs. Denver. For those of you who were not there, I have included a photo. With about five minutes to go in warm-ups, all of our players and many of the Denver players gathered at half-court. For probably a full 60 seconds, these young men kneeled, locked hands/arms and were quiet. No coaches told them to; no fans asked them to; no administrator even knew. They just did it.

As a political science major and an administrator for nearly two decades, I know more about the separation of church and state than most people. Thus, I am going to be honest, I did a little “double take” when I saw what was going on at mid-court. Of course, I knew it was “legal.” However, I thought to myself, ‘Am I watching this?’ Yes… along with everyone else in the gym. So, before the biggest game that most (if not all) of our kids and many of Denver’s kids had ever played, they took time out of warm-ups and congregated. Wow!

Honestly, I have no idea who planned/initiated this, who spoke, what was said, etc. by the players at that moment. I do know, however, that same morning a local school district had a student lose her life in a car accident, and one of our staff members was in the other vehicle. So, I believe that at least part of the minute was devoted to those two individuals and their families. Not quite instantaneously, but shortly after I began to watch, I turned to a former staff member and simply said, “That is cool.” He agreed, and we both posted on social media. 🙂

I am extremely proud of our entire team, as well as the Denver players, who stopped what they were doing, again preparing for the biggest game of the year, gathered and thought of others. There are not many teams, especially in this situation, that would make that important choice. Yes, the Knights played extremely well and won to advance to the substate final, but for me, our team was victorious before the game even started. Go Knights!

P.S. The applause from both stands was deafening when the players stopped and got up.

John Howard is Superintendent of Union Community School District.