Sportsmanship: A Degree Earned When Used

In all my years of coaching youth sports, I tried to emphasize the idea that while winning is a great feeling, the best feeling comes from performing at your best. I hope that some of the lessons ring true, and that maybe one or two young athletes would feel that very thing. But most times you never really know how they turn out after you've coached them.

Such is not the case with the coaches who had an influence on Iowa Basketball standout Jordan Bohannon, a sophomore who had a chance to break the Iowa record for consecutive free-throws made on Sunday. His coaches from his earliest days must have nodded in approval as he deliberately shorted his 35th attempt in order to keep Chris Street's name in the Iowa record books.

Sportsmanship is the kind of thing you can't really teach. You can show it and hope it catches on. This moment will be my favorite story of Iowa Basketball for a long time to come.