High school basketball team gives up title after coach discovers they didn't actually win

We end the week with a lesson in sportsmanship and integrity brought to us by Steve Hartman on the road.

All right girls, everybody in the middle.

The Academy High School girls basketball team in Oklahoma City returned to the court this week. Their first practice since last year's division championship where they hit a buzzer beater that both ended the game and started it all.

The whole season was building up to that moment and it was like one of the best

feelings and it was really exciting just to like see our hard work finally pay

off. It was the team's first championship ever or was it? Coach Brendan King. As you're celebrating,

there's a part of you that's wondering. Right. As soon as I walked out of the locker room, my stomach kind of turned into knots and I said I'm gonna need to

know if we really won this game or not. So what he did that night and again this week at our request was go home and watch the game tape. At one point there had been some confusion about the scoreboard so just to be sure he recounted every basket and discovered his team actually lost.

It really tore me to pieces. It really did.

But technically it didn't matter. League rules say once a game is done, the score is the score. There's no changing it. But Coach King decided to tell his team anyway. And when they heard what had happened,

the consensus was unanimous.

It would have felt wrong, I think, to have taken the trophy regardless. Yeah it was a really good teaching moment for us to just be like

this is not the whole point. Which is why this Academy team made the unprecedented decision to appeal their own crowning victory, ask it be taken away and awarded to their competition, Apache High School. The league agreed and Coach King hand-delivered the championship plaque.

Just really special that he came out and did that. Not everyone would have done that.

Apache coach Amy Merriweather says her team is glad to have the title, but even happier for the hope that came with it.

He showed us, you know, there are still good people in this world. It's something we'll always remember.

Champions all.

Steve Hartman, on the road, in Oklahoma City.

Wow.

Champions for life.

They take that forward.

Just outstanding.

Character, you know, is what you do when no one's looking. No one was looking over his shoulder all by himself there late at night. It's a good lesson that we can

all learn from.

Have a good weekend.

Yeah. Yeah.

You too.