Basketball Players Stop Mid Game To Confront Bullies Abusing Down Syndrome Girl

This is our favourite story of the year.

When three Lincoln Middle School (Kenosha, Wisconsin) basketball players noticed that a cheerleader with Down syndrome was getting bullied during a game, they took immediate action.

One of the cheerleaders is Desiree Andrews, an eighth-grader who has Down syndrome.

Fellow eighth-graders Chase Vasquez, Miles Rodriguez and Scooter Terrien noticed that sections of the crowd were abusing the poor girl, so they stormed off the court to confront the bully.

“One of the kids stepped up and said, ‘Don’t mess with her,’” Brandon Morris, who was the boys seventh-grade coach at Lincoln Middle School in Wisconsin, told Kenosha News.

“We were mad; we didn’t like that,” Rodriguez told the paper. “We asked our sports director to talk to the people and tell them not to make fun of her.”

 a video on TMJ4 news in Wisconsin, Andrews called the gesture “sweet, kind, awesome, amazing.”

“It’s not fair when other people get treated wrong because we’re all the same. We’re all created the same,” Terrien added.

Today, Desiree, whom they call “Dee” for short, never walks to class alone. Coach David Tolefree said this of the boys:

“They have really stepped up, almost like they are big brothers to her.”

The students affectionately dubbed the school gym, “D’s House”. And because the nickname has stuck, they’re erecting a banner with the title.

The students even had t-shirts made to celebrate Dee being with the team.