You are the coach of a Little League All-Star team that has a chance to go to the Little League World Series. In the month leading up to the games, you practice every Saturday and Wednesday, and players are only allowed to miss practices for family or medical issues. Your best player is slated to pitch. A week before the opener against your archrival, whose team is coached by a neighbor you particularly don't like, you conduct a Saturday practice and your star player is not there. his father calls your house and leaves a message that the family had to travel out of town unexpectedly. Later that Saturday, your wife comes home from a day at the shopping mall and tells you she spotted the player in the arcade with two friends. No one else on the team knows that he skipped practice to go to the mall, and only you and your wife know the truth. What do you do?

At first, it seems clear that the right thing to do is the bench the player for a game, at least. No-brainer, right? But then you think about how important he is to the team. How the other players count on him for so much, as do you. You picture the sure lopsided loss next week against the hated rivals. No one would know, you tell yourself. By doing the right thing, you will suffer, as will the rest of you players. What constitutes the right thing to do comes down to the goals you have established in your organization. Are you striving to build character and responsibility in young people or to win the game at all costs?