Fairness

A Colorado football fan has filed an explosive $100 million lawsuit against the National Football League, claiming league owners conspired to sabotage Shedeur Sanders' draft position after the star quarterback shockingly fell to the fifth round of the NFL draft. The federal lawsuit alleges the once consensus top-5 pick became victim of "collusive practices" that caused the fan "severe emotional distress."

"It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion," the plaintiff, filing as "John Doe," told The Independent. "Every time they passed on Shedeur for some second-rate player, I felt physically sick. This wasn't football - this was personal." The 22-page complaint details how Sanders' draft freefall allegedly violated The Sherman Antitrust Act, with owners collectively suppressing his value. Legal analysts immediately dismissed the case as frivolous, but acknowledge it taps into growing fan skepticism about draft transparency. "They think they're untouchable," the fan said of NFL owners. "Well, not this time."

League sources point to Sanders' reportedly poor combined interviews and off-field concerns as the real reason for his slide. But the lawsuit has ignited fiery debates across sports media about fairness in the draft process. With legal experts giving the case less than a 1% chance of success, the fan's nine-figure demand appears more about making a statement than expecting a payout, potentially opening the floodgates for lawsuits over similar grievances.

The NFL has yet to formally respond, but the case has already accomplished one thing: turning Sanders' disappointing draft night into one of the most talked-about football stories of the year.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While this story may not have much legal basis for a case, it does illustrate the need for believers and churches to be open and transparent in all decisions and business matters. We must be “above reproach” and “blameless” (2 Cor. 4:2; Phil. 2:15; 1 Tim. 5:7; Titus 1:7).

Twenty years ago, at the moment of its IPO announcement, the most powerful company in the world declared that “Don’t be evil” would be the orchestrating principle of its executive strategy. How did Google intend not to be evil? By doing “good things” for the world, its IPO document explained, “even if we forgo some short-term gains.”

Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO at the time, had some private doubts: as he would later explain in an interview to NPR, “There’s no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something.” But Schmidt came to believe that the absence of an authoritative definition was in fact a virtue, since any employee could exercise a veto over any decision that was felt not to involve “doing good things.” It took 10 years for the company’s executives to realize that the motto was a recipe for total, corporate paralysis, and quietly retired it.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible offers a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to business ethics than Google's original motto, providing guidance on positive actions rather than just avoiding a vague negative motto (Micah 6:8).

The Paralympic Games is a celebration of athletic achievement for those with physical disabilities. It has been marred by a growing concern: “classification doping,” (which borrows language used to describe performance enhancing substance abuse). Athletes are misrepresenting the extent of their disabilities to gain an unfair advantage over competitors.

Double amputee Oksana Masters, a prominent Paralympic athlete, believes officials are more interested in maintaining a positive image than addressing the issue. "They want to keep the warm and fuzzy narrative going," she said. "If they knew what's really going on behind closed doors, they'd be shocked."

The Paralympic classification system is designed to place athletes into competitions with others who have similar impairments. While some disabilities are easy to categorize, others are more ambiguous, relying on the judgment of medical classifiers and the integrity of the athletes themselves.

The most infamous Paralympic cheating scandal came at the 2000 Sydney Games, where Spain’s intellectual disability men’s basketball team won the gold medal despite fielding a roster with 10 players who did not have disabilities.

Physician Kevin Kopera, a volunteer in the Paralympic classification system, is cautious about dismissing the issue. "I don't believe anyone can say to what degree misrepresentation exists in parasports," he said. "Any statement in this regard would be speculative. Certainly, to say it doesn't exist would not be realistic. The stakes are too high."

Military policeman Danny Brown was working at the massive Fort Jackson Army Base in Columbia, South Carolina when late at night he saw a truck going 13 miles over the speed limit. He pulled it over and asked the driver, dressed in civilian clothes, for ID. He didn’t recognize the driver, who said nothing as he handed over his ID.

Brown had already decided to give the driver a 1408 warning ticket, which doesn't go on the offender's record but does go right to the company commander. To his surprise, the ID indicated the driver’s rank was "07"—a one-star general. Brown writes:

I'm a Pfc - private first class, the third lowest rank in the Army. My primary job is to carry out orders by commanding officers. And here I am writing a ticket to a general. I decided to treat him as I would anyone else and hold him the same set of rules. I walked up to the truck and saluted him. “I didn't recognize you, sir,” I said. Then I handed him the ticket. “Sir, that ticket is going back to the highest command in your unit, which is, well, you. So, when you get back tomorrow, you're going to explain to yourself why you were speeding.”

The general laughed and thanked him, but early the next morning Brown is suddenly worried and stressed. Two MPs in full uniform entered his room and told him that the colonel, who was the police chief of the base, wanted to see him right away. Brown told them he'd be there in a minute, but the MPs insisted, "You're coming with us right now."

Brown was certain he would get chewed out for giving a ticket to a general. "It happens all the time - someone of higher rank trying to intimidate, talk down, or lay into me for doing my job."

At the military police station, in the colonel's office, Brown saluted the colonel and stood at attention. “The general sent this for you,” the colonel said, and handed him a military coin. It had the general's name and rank. It is a coin of appreciation.

Iconic quiz show Jeopardy! faces an uncertain future due to ongoing labor strikes by two labor unions, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Sony Pictures Television, the show's producer, is exploring solutions like reusing questions to maintain broadcast continuity during the labor disputes. However, the imminent start of Season 40's production adds urgency to resolving the impasse.

Contestants set to compete in the upcoming Tournament of Champions have expressed solidarity with striking workers. Toronto's Ray Lalonde, a 13-time winner last season, declared his support on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum, vowing not to cross picket lines. More holdouts could cause a postponement to winter or spring.

Moreover, the status of hosts raises another concern—Mayim Bialik has already halted her duties until the resolution of the labor issues, while Ken Jennings faces increasing pressure to follow suit.

As Season 40's premiere approaches, the show's future hinges on negotiations between the two unions and Sony Pictures Television. Those negotiations are said to be imminent and/or ongoing. With a rich legacy and loyal fan base, the fate of Jeopardy! rests on key leaders in both camps being able to find middle ground in this dispute. And fortunately, the answer to this problem need not be stated in the form of a question.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture has much to say about the rich and powerful withholding wages from the hardworking laborer. Regardless of how this particular strike is settled, there is a day coming in God’s timetable for all accounts to be settled in God’s courtroom (Jam. 5:1-6).

The Supreme Court recently outlawed most racial preferences in college admissions. However, a new study from Ivy League researchers indicates another form of affirmative action that tends to dominate exclusive institutions of higher learning: preference for wealth.

The Harvard study involved the eight Ivy League schools, plus four other highly-selective schools. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, the data show that children from families in the top one percent of income ranking were 34 percent more likely to be admitted into these schools than the average applicant. Those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to be accepted.

Study researchers said, “The conclusion from this study is the Ivy League doesn’t have low-income students because it doesn’t want low-income students. ... Are these highly selective private colleges in America taking kids from very high-income, influential families and basically channeling them to remain at the top in the next generation?”

The study indicates that legacy admissions, or students given preferences because of alumni parents, is a large driver of outcomes that prioritize the wealthy over other similarly deserving students. So, too, are admission slots for certain sports like rowing, fencing, lacrosse, or equestrian, that tend to be populated by the wealthy because of high participation costs and upper-class cultural values.

The one notable exception is M.I.T., which is known for not offering admissions preferences to either legacy applicants or athletes. Stuart Schmill, dean of admissions at M.I.T. said, “I think the most important thing here is talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not. Our admissions process is designed to account for the different opportunities students have based on their income. It’s really incumbent upon our process to tease out the difference between talent and privilege.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

If God doesn't treat the rich or poor or different racial groups favorably, then we shouldn't either.

99-year-old Osceola "Ozzie" Fletcher finally received his Purple Heart. It was awarded in a ceremony at the Fort Hamilton Army base in June of 2021 for wounds he suffered in the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Army officials said that Fletcher was “overlooked” for the medal previously because of racial inequalities. Fletcher said that he was “exhilarated,” when he received the award.

The allied invasion of Normandy, France, also known as D-Day, began on June 6, 1944 and lasted until August. The operation led to the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe, and marked the beginning of the end of the European theater in World War II.

According to The New York Post, Fletcher was a 22-year-old private with the 254th Port Battalion during the military operation. He was working as a crane operator when he was hit by a German missile that left him with leg injuries and a head gash, causing a permanent scar.

Gen. James McConville said during the ceremony, “He has spent his entire life giving to those around him whether they were brothers in arms, families, or his community. Well, today it’s Ozzie’s turn to receive.”

The Army conducted a fact-finding mission regarding Fletcher’s overlooked medal and found that he deserved the award after his daughter, Jacqueline Streets, contacted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Streets said,

My father has a gash in his head that we can still see. And obviously he was doing the job of an American soldier. I do believe he was overlooked. We’re finally looking at all of our soldiers in the same way, America is trying to shift its thinking about culture and about race and I appreciate that. I think we’re acknowledging things that happened in the past and trying to correct them moving forward.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Race; Race Relations – Every person who serves their country deserves to be honored, regardless of race or ethnicity (Acts 10:34-35, Rom. 10:12); 2) Reward; Service, reward for - God will never overlook any Christian for the service they have offered to him (Heb. 6:10).

In Major League Baseball, it’s common for umpires to eject players or team personnel whose behavior is deemed out of line. But rarely does those ejected include the grounds crew. MLB umpire crew chief Terry Timmons later denied ejecting them, per se, but that’s what he appeared to do during a mid-September game between the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees.

The Orioles had a one-run lead when storm clouds were gathering overhead and it appeared as though rain was imminent. As is their duty, the grounds crew stood beyond the first base line holding their massive tarp, ready to spread it over the field to protect it from rainfall. That is, until Timmons emphatically waved them off of the field. It was the ninth inning, and Timmons wanted to finish the game. After the game Timmons texted the Associated Press, "I didn't 'eject' the grounds crew. I just didn't want all of them behind the tarp, especially with the infield in.''

Timmons’ unspoken but understandable concern was with avoiding an unnecessary delay to the game. It takes time for the grounds crew to either cover or uncover the field, and that doesn’t even include whatever delay the rain itself might incur. With the game so close to its conclusion, Timmons’ desire echoed that of many American workers; after a long day of work, he just wanted to go home.

A few minutes after the grounds crew was ushered away, Yankees batter Brett Gardner ended up hitting a two-run single to win the game.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we serve the Lord, we must have sound judgment. Wisdom isn't just mindlessly applying the same standard to every situation, but assessing the time and situation to continually discern the most prudent course of action.

In the spring of 2018, Charles Battle II had no idea that he would become the focal point of his local community’s struggle to reform the way police interact with its citizens. But now he’s as engaged in the struggle as he’s ever been.

Police detained Battle as a suspect for a robbery he had not committed, all because an eyewitness identified him as having been involved minutes prior. However, Battle was not wearing any apparel that matched witness testimony, and the witness at the time was not wearing her glasses. The only thing Battle had in common with the suspect description is that he was young and Black. Nevertheless, he was arrested and kept in police custody. It wasn’t until six months later that the Denver District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges for lack of evidence. His mother said, “He’s been traumatized. He says, ‘Mom, any day I leave I could not come home.’”

The police technique used to identify Charles is informally known as a “showup.” Unlike the traditional technique of having witnesses pick the suspect out of a lineup of several potential suspects (or to pick from a photo array, which uses the same principle), police bring witnesses in person to the area of the crime to identify a potential suspect without being shown any other alternatives.

As a result of her son’s arrest, Sharon Battle collaborated with Together Colorado, a multifaith advocacy group, who spent years advocating for changes in the way law enforcement conducts witness identifications. The resulting bill has gotten bipartisan support in the Colorado legislature, and it prohibits the use of showups except in situations where lineups and photo arrays are not possible, but the potential suspect is detained “within minutes of the commission of the crime and near the location of the crime.”

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, the bill’s sponsor said, “Everyone deserves to have the right person be held accountable for these actions. You shouldn’t just be Black on the street and be thrown into the system because we can’t identify people properly.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

All of us, and especially those of us in positions of leadership, have a responsibility to behave as honorably as possible to promote justice. If our behavior injures or offends others, we have a responsibility to correct those behaviors and make things right with those who were wronged.

In August, the world lost an iconic figure of film and stage. Chadwick Boseman, best known as king T’Challa from Marvel’s Black Panther, died from complications of colon cancer at 43. Because of his quiet and generous nature and the privacy with which he battled his sickness, Boseman’s death reverberated not only across the entertainment community, but throughout the world.

As the tributes continued to roll in from a variety of high-profile Hollywood figures, actor Sienna Miller added her own to the mix. Miller co-starred with Boseman in the action-thriller 21 Bridges, but she says she only ended up in the film because of his generosity.

Miller said, "So, he approached me to do it and it was at a time when I really didn't want to work anymore. I'd been working non-stop and I was exhausted … but I wanted to work with him." She added that she would only do the film “if I were compensated in the right way.” After contacting the studio, however, they balked at the number she had in mind. Apparently, they didn’t think she was worth that much. But Boseman used his leverage to ensure her participation, donating a portion of his salary to ensure she could receive fair pay.

The move surprised Miller greatly.

That kind of thing just doesn't happen. He said, “You're getting paid what you deserve, and what you're worth.” … In the aftermath of this I've told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very, very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians, we are instructed to go out of our way to show generosity and respect, especially to those with less power or privilege. This is the way that we stand apart from the crowd.

It seemed like Dan Price had it all. He was the CEO of a successful business with a million-dollar salary and a gorgeous home overlooking Puget Sound outside Seattle, Washington. But then he noticed two things: first, more money wasn’t making him any happier. “There’s some number where, when you hit it, the money over that just doesn’t make your life much better.” And secondly, his employees were struggling. Cost-of-living in Seattle is one of the highest in the nation. So, Dan did something unthinkable: in 2015, he cut his million-dollar salary down 90% in order to raise the minimum wage of his workers to $70,000.

The effect was immediate: More than 10% of employees have purchased a house for the first time. Personal individual 401k contributions have more than doubled, and more than 70% of employees with debt have been able to pay some of it down. Other surprising things happened as well: The number of babies born to employees in the company increased from 0-1 per year to roughly 6-7 per year. “The worries of not being able to pay for something have disappeared,” wrote one employee when asked how Gravity’s wage policy has affected their life. “I don’t have to make a choice between fuel or groceries. I don’t have to worry about an unexpected emergency.”

And what happened to his company? It grew from 120 employees to more than 200. They even opened a second location in Boise, Idaho and instituting the same minimum wage there as well.

Dan said, “I’m the same age as Mark Zuckerberg and I have dark moments where I think, ‘I want to be just as rich as Mark Zuckerberg and I want to compete with him to be on the Forbes list. And I want to be on the cover of Time magazine, making lots of money.’ All these greedy things are tempting. But my life is so much better.”

Timothy Keller writes “In A Reason for God”:

In Christianity God is both a God of love and of justice. Many people struggle with this. They believe that a loving God can't be a judging God. Like most other Christian ministers in our society, I have been asked literally thousands of times, "How can a God of love be also a God of filled with wrath and anger? If he is loving and perfect, he should forgive and accept everyone. He shouldn't get angry."

I always start my response by pointing out that all loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite of but because of their love. If you love a person and you see someone ruining them—even they themselves—you get angry. As Becky Pippert puts it in her book Hope Has Its Reasons:

Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it. . . . Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference. . . . God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer . . . which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.

The Bible says that God's wrath flows from his love and delight in his creation. He is angry at evil and injustice because it is destroying its peace and integrity.

Nevest Coleman resumed his job as a groundskeeper for the Chicago White Sox after an unexpected hiatus left him unavailable to work-for 23 years. In 1994, Coleman was charged and convicted of rape and murder. He spent the next two decades behind bars until prosecutors vacated his conviction after considering DNA evidence that should've ruled him out as a suspect. Several months later, a Cook County judge granted Coleman a certificate of innocence, which officially cleared his name of all related charges.

While maintaining a steadfast belief in his innocence, Coleman always looked back fondly on the time he spent working with the team, which felt very much like a family. After his release, friends and family members reached out to the White Sox organization, delighted by an official invite to come and reapply for his old job. After re-hiring him, the team issued an official statement:

"We're grateful that after more than two decades, justice has been carried out for Nevest," the team said in a statement. "It has been a long time, but we're thrilled that we have the opportunity to welcome him back to the White Sox family. We're looking forward to having Nevest back on Opening Day at home in our ballpark."

On Coleman's first day back at work, he was flanked by two of his former coworkers, and was warmly greeted by the team's head groundskeeper, Roger "The Sodfather" Bossard.

"I saved your spot for you," Bossard said. "I knew you'd be back."

Preaching angles: (1) God's justice—This is such a heartwarming story, but we all know that many times injustice still reigns. We long for the day when God will judge the earth with perfect justice, restoring what was lost, making all things right and just. (2) Justice—As followers of Christ we are also called to fight for justice on earth as it will be in heaven.

In Fleming Rutledge's new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, she acknowledges the difficulty that modern people have with the concept of God's wrath. Nevertheless, she writes, "there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme." But forget the Bible for a moment: don't we have wrath, too? Rutledge writes:

A slogan of our times is "Where's the outrage?" It has been applied to everything from Big Pharma's market manipulation to CEOs' astronomical wealth to police officers' stonewalling. "Where the outrage?" inquire many commentators, wondering why congressmen, officials, and ordinary voters seem so indifferent. Why has the gap between rich and poor become so huge? Why are so many mentally ill people slipping through the cracks? Why does gun violence continue to be a hallmark of American culture? Why are there so many innocent people on death row? Why are our prisons filled with such a preponderance of black and Hispanic men? Where's the outrage? The public is outraged all over cyberspace about all kinds of things that annoy us personally—the NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome—but outrages in the heart of God go unnoticed and unaddressed.

If we are resistant to the idea of the wrath of God, we might pause to reflect the next time we are outraged about something—about our property values being threatened, or our children's educational opportunities being limited, or our tax breaks being eliminated. All of us are capable of anger about something. God's anger, however, is pure. It does not have the maintenance of privilege as its object, but goes out on behalf of those who have no privileges. the wrath of God is not an emotion that flares up from time to time, as though God had temper tantrums; it is a way of describing his absolute enmity against all wrong and his come to set matters right.

Three researchers from the U.S. and Israel decided to test the legal adage that justice equals "what the judge ate for breakfast." The research team tracked the rulings of eight judges in over 1,100 parole-board hearings over 10 months. The results overwhelmingly led them to the following conclusion: the chances of a prisoner being granted parole depended on the time of day that the judge heard the case. To put it bluntly, the judges'—who had an average of 22 years of experience—ability to make decisions was about as reliable as a kindergartner who needs a snack break.

Prisoners' odds for getting their parole granted started out high in the morning right after breakfast. About 65 percent of the prisoners were granted a parole. Then for the next few hours, the chances of getting a favorable parole hearing started to plummet. This was followed by a cycle of peaks and valleys that repeated itself throughout the day. Prisoners' chances of parole leapt back up to 65 percent at two distinct times: right after the judges' mid-morning snack and again after lunch.

One blogger concluded: "The law, being a human concoction, is subject to the same foibles, biases and imperfections that affect everything humans do"—biases like a bad mood or even breakfast.

Possible Preaching Angles: Our expressions of wrath and judgment are always flawed (which is perhaps one reason why we're turned off by the wrath of God). God alone can deliver perfect, unbiased, impartial justice on the earth.

Clifton Williams was headed to the courthouse in Joliet, Illinois to support his cousin, who was going to be sentenced. At the precise moment that Judge Daniel Rozak was reading the sentence, Clifton let out a loud yawn. Because of that ill-timed yawn, the judge cited Clifton for contempt of court and handed down a sentence of six months of jail time.

Ironically, his cousin, who was scheduled to be sentenced, only got probation. But Clifton, who went to court to support his cousin, would go straight to jail. In the aftermath of this story, discussions ensued on cable news channels about judicial power, about Judge Rozak's history of passing down extreme contempt charges, and even about the nature of yawning. Clifton's father argued that a yawn is an involuntary action. The prosecutor in the courtroom that day said, "It was not a simple yawn—it was a loud and boisterous attempt to disrupt the proceedings." Was Clifton's yawn a premeditated first-degree offense? Will the truth about the yawn ever emerge? However innocuous or flagrant the yawn, Clifton Williams probably wishes he would have held it in.

In the end, Clifton only served a few days of the six-month sentence. But after the case was over the question still lingered: Was the judge's penalty excessive? Some people reacted with disbelief; others were outraged, but almost everyone (except Judge Rozak) agreed that the punishment did not fit the crime. Of course the judge had the authority to hand down a contempt sentence against Clifton. Judges have broad discretion under the law on the issue of contempt charges. But was the judgment fair? Was it just?

Possible Preaching Angles: God, wrath of; Judgment; Hell—For many people in our culture, the wrath or judgment of God seems about as arbitrary and capricious as Judge Rozak's contempt ruling. In other words, they think that God's punishments do not fit our crime. Use this illustration to identify with people's assumptions but then to point to the true nature of God's justice and God's rulings.

Although we like to believe that beauty runs only skin deep, research shows that it pays to be good-looking. A survey by Newsweek concluded, "In all elements of the workplace, from hiring to politics to promotions … looks matter, and they matter hard." The research provided the following results:

• Favoritism Happens: 57 percent of hiring managers believe an unattractive (but qualified) job candidate will have a harder time getting hired.
• Favoritism Continues: 68 percent of hiring managers believe that, once hired, looks will affect the way managers rate an employee's job performance.
• Your Looks Matter More Than Your Resume: 59 percent of hiring managers advised spending as much time and money "making sure they look attractive" as on perfecting a resume.
• It's Worse for Women: 61 percent of hiring managers (and 60 percent of them were men) said that women would benefit from wearing clothes that show off their figure.
• We Judge Overweight People: Although 75 percent of Americans are overweight, about 66 percent of managers said they thought some managers would hesitate before hiring someone who is significantly overweight.
• We Also Judge Old People: 84 percent of managers said their bosses would hesitate before hiring a qualified candidate who looked much older than his or her co-workers.
• We Think Favoritism Based on Looks Is OK: 64 percent of hiring managers said they believe companies should be allowed to hire people based on looks.

On the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage, even Christians who agree that it is wrong differ about whether Christians should make it a political issue. Whether legalizing same-sex marriage is an important political issue to you or not, the beliefs that are used to argue for it should matter deeply to you. No matter what our society decides on this and other issues, when an unbiblical belief works its way into the foundation of your personal morality, it can lay the groundwork for wrong living in many ways.

In September of 2008, Brad Pitt put into words the arguments that many use to justify legalizing same-sex marriage. He was explaining why he had just donated $100,000 to fight California's November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. On first hearing, Pitt's three reasons for legalizing same-sex marriage sound completely fair and right. Here is what he said:

Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another, and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.

Again, we should be concerned about the laws of our society and the effect they have on everyone directly and indirectly, but we should be just as concerned about the beliefs that we may unwittingly adopt. Are Brad Pitt's beliefs true without any qualification? Is he partly right and partly wrong? And what does the Bible say about these beliefs?

At a girls' basketball game recently, in the last seconds of the game, a girl threw a basketball the entire length of a basketball court and she made the basket. But it didn't count because she had one foot out of bounds, beyond the line. Talk about the three-point shot! She threw it further than a whole court. She should have gotten five points for that shot. They should have a whole new scoring system! But instead, it did not count because a referee noticed that one foot was outside the line. She was actually further than she had to be. It still didn't count. You can't throw it from the grandstands, you can't make baskets that way. Otherwise, there is no game.