For more information, contact:
The St. Louis Sports Commission
314-345-5121
bshulman@stlsports.org

• Darius McNeal:  In February, McNeal and the DeKalb (Ill.) High School boys basketball team were playing at Madison High School in Milwaukee.  Earlier in the day, the mother of one of the Madison players passed away after a battle with cervical cancer.  The player, Johntell Franklin, wasn’t expected to show up for the game that night.  But in the second quarter, Franklin arrived and asked his coach to put him in the game.  Because Franklin wasn’t on the pregame roster, the referees had to assess a technical foul.  So McNeal volunteered to shoot the free throws, went to the line, and intentionally missed both shots – the first traveling just two feet in front of the line.
  
  
• Shawn Crawford:  A gold medalist at the 2004 Olympics, Crawford finished fourth in the 200-meters at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.  But after the race, officials disqualified the second- and third-place finishers for lane violations and awarded Crawford the silver medal.  Crawford felt he had been beaten fairly.  At a track meet one week later, he left a package for Churandy Martina, the original second-place runner, at his hotel.  Inside the package was the silver medal and a note from Crawford telling Martina that the medal was rightfully his.
  
  

• The New York Yankees:  In July, the Yankees hosted the XP Society and Camp Sundown at Yankee Stadium.  The children from Camp Sundown suffer from Xeroderma Pigmentosum, a rare genetic disorder that prevents them from going outdoors in daylight.  Any UV light, including florescent lighting, can cause severe burns.  Most patients do not live past the age of 20.  To bring joy and hope to the kids of Camp Sundown, the Yankees entertained them and their families in a party suite at a Yankees’ game.  After the game, once the stadium lighting was suitably dimmed, the Yankees transformed the field into a massive open-air carnival for the campers.  Yankee players, including Jorge Posada and A.J. Burnett, and GM Brian Cashman hung out with the kids until nearly 4 a.m. – when the families re-boarded their buses to make it back to camp before daybreak.
  
  

• Azusa Pacific University:  Last fall, the Azusa Pacific men’s soccer team was set to play Westmont College in the Golden State Athletic Conference championship game.  A berth in the NAIA Men’s Soccer Championship was on the line.  Less than 48 hours before the game, a devastating California wildfire engulfed the Westmont community.  The fire destroyed the home of Westmont’s coach and left many students, including members of the soccer team, with just the clothes on their backs.  Azusa Pacific could have won the game by forfeit.  Instead, the school immediately postponed the match and reached out to their opponents providing them free room and board.  When the game was rescheduled, Azusa Pacific offered free admission to the Westmont student body.  An inspired Westmont team won the game 2-0.    
  
  

The complete lineup of honorees and their stories can be found at www.stlsports.org/awards.

In addition to the awards program at the Chase Park Plaza on Nov. 21, the AT&T National Sportsmanship Awards will air nationally on CBS College Sports Network.  The premiere telecast will be seen in primetime on Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 8 p.m. CST and re-air several other times in December.  The one-hour show will feature the most compelling honoree stories and highlights from the live awards presentation in St. Louis.
Tickets are available to the AT&T National Sportsmanship Awards. 

For more information, call 314-345-5122 or visit www.stlsports.org/awards.

The St. Louis Sports Commission is the privately funded nonprofit organization that benefits St. Louis through sports.
Its mission is to make the St. Louis region a better place to live, visit, work and play through sports.