One can hardly walk by a basketball court without seeing a kid working on his latest moves. Countless hours are devoted to perfecting fancy dribbling and misdirection, all to fake out your opponent. These techniques have become so commonplace that terms like taking your opponent to school or breaking ankles have become part of acceptable basketball terminology.

Something remarkable happened on Sunday December 1^st in the final game of the Mitch Gross Basketball girl’s regular season. It was about halfway through the third quarter, with the Berkshire Bank team holding a four-point lead over the Build Within Reach team. Build Within Reach’s Hayley Solomon had the ball on the left wing and with a jab step, faked her defender out of her sneakers. The defender was so badly fooled that she literally fell down. Instead of blowing by her defender and trying to bring her team within a basket. Solomon stopped, extended her hand and asked the downed defender if she was okay.

Winning is important to some degree, that’s why we keep score. Although Build Within Reach did not win that game, if we are producing children with Middot like Hayley Solomon, we are all winners. Yasher Koach.