Sometimes, the greatest moments happen when you least expect it.

For Wisconsin senior Patrick Farrell, that moment arrived last Tuesday. That was the night when his Wrightstown team wrestled Chilton, and Farrell finally got to perform in a varsity match.

Farrell is a kid who’s had to achieve his goals while overcoming obstacles many don’t have to deal with.

He was born with his hips out of their sockets and with developmental problems. He also has a speech impediment that still lingers, even after he underwent surgery for it as a child.

(Photo- Patrick Farrell is carried off the mat by his teammates after he wrestled in his first varsity match) 

A team and a player decided there were more important things than winning and having good stats. 

They missed the free throws intentionally to give an opposing player who’d lost his mother earlier that day a chance to work out his grief by playing.

They stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.

“I did it for the guy who lost his mom,” McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It was the right thing to do.”

(Read the full story in Rivals High from Yahoo Sports)

Thanks to Nancy P. for the news tip! 

For one night, the stands were full and the playing field was level. For one night, the fans — “We have fans?” the Roosevelt girls were surely thinking — convinced a winless basketball team it could do no wrong. For one glorious night, the community laid hands on a high school that has been left — by far too many — for dead. (Full story by Steve Duin, The Oregonian)