High School Linebacker Gives a Beautiful Lesson in Sportsmanship
By Ken Reed
A week ago, Chatfield High School was playing Erie High School in a barnburner of a Colorado Class 4A state football championship game.
Erie sophomore quarterback Blake Barnett had rallied his team from a 34-20 deficit with two touchdowns in the 4th quarter. During those scoring drives, Barnett had made some dazzling individual plays. With 1:54 to go in the game the title tilt was knotted up at 34.
Chatfield answered with an impressive 80-yard drive to go ahead 41-34. But Barnett wasn’t giving up just yet. However, on the last play of the game, his long pass was batted down in the Chatfield end zone.
That set off a wild celebration for Chatfield’s players, coaches and fans. The victorious players were running around on the field hugging, high-fiving, and chest-bumping teammates. But before celebrating, Chatfield senior linebacker Caden Logan ran straight to Barnett to console the Erie quarterback who was kneeling despondently on the turf in defeat.
Logan put his arm around Barnett and said, “Keep your head up. You’re going to do great things.”
Asked later why he chose to console Barnett before celebrating with his teammates, Logan said:
“They worked just as hard as we did. They’re a great team. I can only imagine the feeling of heartache that he must’ve been going through. I hate that. So, from brother to brother … “
How awesome is that?
If only the rest of us could have that kind of class and decide to play the game of life with that type of respect, empathy and grace.
It sure would be a much nicer country to live in than the angry, divided place we currently call home.
Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
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Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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