Young Players Walk Off Court to Defend Girl With Down Syndrome

Some young basketball players in Wisconsin are getting national attention for a class act. During a game in Kenosha, the players from Lincoln Middle School realized that some kids in the stands were making fun of one of their cheerleaders—a girl with Down syndrome named Desiree Andrews, reports TMJ4. Three of them, Miles Rodriguez, Scooter Terrien, and Chase Vazquez, walked off the court, into the stands, and got the insults to stop.

"A couple of us went over there and were like, 'Can you guys just stop, that's not right,'" says Miles. Word of the kind gesture has spread on social media, and the Kenosha City Council will give the youths a citizenship honor next week. Desiree's dad, Cliff Andrews, tells the Kenosha News that his daughter, an 8th-grader, wanted to be a cheerleader after watching Glee. “Those boys, I tried to talk to them in person, but I couldn’t keep the tears back.” (For the first time ever, Fashion Week featured a model with Down syndrome this year.)