Melanie Bailey vs. Red Sanders

Melanie Bailey is a senior at Devils Lake High School in North Dakota.  She advanced to the championship race in the Eastern Dakota conference cross-country event.  At the 2 mile mark of the 2.4 mile course she saw an injured runner.

Danielle Lenoue, a senior from Fargo South High School had torn her miniscus and her patella tendon.  Collapsing in pain, Danielle sat beside the course holding her knee and sobbing.  Other runners ran by her on the way to the finish line less than a half-mile ahead.  Not Melanie.

Melanie did not know Danielle.  They attended different high schools.  In this event they were competitors.  But Melanie stopped.  A fellow student was crying in pain.  Danielle was suffering and in need.  Melanie got Danielle on her back and carried her the remaining half mile across the finish line.  Melanie did not win the race. 

I do not know who won this event in North Dakota.  The winner did not make headlines.  Melanie and her effort to help a fellow student have made headlines.  Melanie and Danielle will remember this for the rest of their lives.  Melanie played Good Samaritan and won a much more valuable place in history than winning the race.

Red Sanders, the UCLA football coach, at a 1950 Physical Education conference said, “Winning isn’t everything; it is the only thing.”  In 1959 Vince Lombardi would repeat the quotation and for many was attributed with the saying.  But it was Red Sanders who first said it.  Regardless, the belief articulated in the quotation is flawed and Melanie knows that.  The runners who ran by the injured Danielle were driven to win.  Melanie knows there are things much more important in life than winning.  Selflessly serving a needy fellow human being will always be more important than winning an athletic event.

Melanie is wiser than Red and Vince.  She is a human being first a competitor second.  We should look to her as an example of what humans can be.  We will not do so with the student who won that particular race.

If there were a competition between Melanie and Red for most noble, honorable philosophy of living Melanie would win.  Thank you, Melanie.  And thank God.