BRADFORD—With 17 seconds left on the clock, Oxbow High School’s junior varsity basketball team was down by 35 points, and it was clear Danville High School was about to take the win.
Noah Hatch had just been subbed in. The Oxbow freshman has cerebral palsy and only started team basketball this school year.
Suddenly, all eyes in the gymnasium were on him. In the corner near his home basket, a teammate passed him the ball. Hatch took his shot and missed.
Kohl Guinard, a Danville freshman guard, got the rebound. Instead of taking the ball down the court as expected, he passed it back to Hatch. Hatch shot and missed again. Again, Guinard caught the rebound and again he threw Hatch the ball, to the Oxbow player’s surprise. Never had a player from another team passed to Hatch before, he said later.
As the games’ final seconds ticked away, Hatch sent the ball into the basket. Cheers and applause from fans of both teams erupted across the gymnasium.
“This is exactly what should be happening every single day, in every single school across this country,” said Heidi Wright, athletic director at Oxbow. “We’re trying to create a positive culture and a positive experience for all athletes coming here, all people, spectators, the whole experience.”
The Jan. 17 game injected a shot of positive adrenaline to Vermont’s high school sports scene, which has been plagued by a recent spate of bad behavior, racially charged incidents and sometimes violence among players and spectators.
Earlier this year, Burlington High School and Rice Memorial High School canceled girls basketball games against Champlain Valley Union High School after one of the latter school’s players posted a TikTok video in which she used a racial slur. Middlebury Union High School cited continued “racist attacks” against its girls basketball players during games against Enosburg Falls High School when declining to play against that school last month.
BFA-Fairfax High School banned spectators from basketball games following allegations that someone shouted racist language from the stands at Milton High School players. And just last week, a 60-year-old Alburgh man died in a hospital, hours after Vermont State Police said a brawl between adults and players broke out at the end of a middle school basketball game between Alburgh and St. Albans City School.
The best way to prevent and address such behavior is to set proper expectations, said Randy Rathburn, athletic director at Danville and a former member of the Sportsmanship Committee for the Vermont Principals’ Association. The committee produced a flyer with “do’s and don’ts” of good sportsmanship.
For example, the “dos” instruct students to cheer for their own team, not against the other team. Rathburn made some laminated copies to pass around and hung a 6-foot-by-4-foot banner in the gym.
“I think sometimes the things quickly snowball,” he said. “If student-athletes or anybody in the crowd needs a reminder, I have something I can point to and say, ‘Hey, you see what that says? That’s not what we’re doing here.’ We’re going to come up with a more creative way to cheer on our team.”
Members of the community are still cheering on Guinard, 15, who goes by Koko. Tiffany Butler, who is Guinard’s legal guardian and considers herself his mother, said people have told him at subsequent basketball games that they appreciated his “good sportsmanship.” She has heard them say, "You know, that was a really nice thing that you did and it was nice to watch,” Butler recalled.
Guinard, who wasn’t available for an interview, has maintained his modesty, she said. His usual response, according to Butler: “I don't really know what to say besides, ‘Thank you.’”
Adult leaders of an athletics program set the tone for student behavior, Butler added. That’s how he developed his inclination to do right by his fellow players on the court, she added.
“In that brief 10 seconds, I know there’s not enough time for anybody to think, ‘Oh, we’re supposed to be good sportsmen right now,’” she said of Guinard’s actions. “It was just like, ‘Let me make this kid’s day.’”
Hatch, 15, has become a bit of a celebrity himself, with strangers now chanting his name at games, said his mother, Jessica Hatch.
“You know, with everything terrible that you see and hear about sports, it was nice to have … those moments for him,” she said. “I think it's not only a positive experience for him, but for anybody that he plays with or against.”
Justin Smith, Oxbow’s varsity basketball coach, said he usually sends in Hatch to play in the last few minutes of the game. And Hatch has scored before, he added.
The spread of the score of the Danville game on Jan. 17 made no difference, Smith said.
“Noah is one of the kids who’s listening to us every second we’re speaking, so we reward him at the end of the game with some playing time,” he said. “We’re just trying to raise good human beings.”
Read the original story on the Journal Opinion.
