Credit to Jay Shaw (DB for UCLA) after the game last week

My tickets are behind the visitors bench. With about a minute left in the game last week my son ran down to the front row. He called to four or five UCLA players (using the last name from their jersey), asking if they’d give him their gloves. The first four glanced back at him then turned back to the action on the field. I don’t blame them for ignoring him - they were down seven touchdowns and a kid wearing a Utah jersey was asking for his gloves.

My son then saw #24 - Jay Shaw - and yelled out to him. Shaw turned around and my son asked him if he could have his gloves. Shaw immediately gave a big smile, took off his gloves, and walked over to the railing and gave a glove to my son, and the other to my son’s friend.

Classy move by Shaw - it would not have been easy for him to give his gloves to fans of the team that just beat him. But when presented with an opportunity to be kind and make a kid’s day, he took it.

Don’t necessarily know why I’m posting this - I’ve just been thinking all week of how Shaw acted in that moment, and I’m impressed by his maturity. He’s the kind of athletic role model that I want my kids to have. Thanks Shaw.

Pretty cool. Might I suggest that you send this to the UCLA athletic department? Tell them what you told us about Shaw. I suspect they’d like to hear about what Shaw. I’d leave out the other players, just focus on Shaw and his sportsmanship.

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I thought about that, but I don’t want to throw him under the bus if he wasn’t supposed to give his gloves away. I did send a message to him on twitter to thank him. He was gracious in his reply, saying it was the least he could do.

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The more I hear and see about the general death of civility in this country, at sports or in the public sphere, the more turned off I get about people in general. One time Travis Wilson and I passed each other alone in a parking lot and I wondered how often someone says things to him as if they have some relationship to this kid. One of the players is marrying a relative and middle aged people act like groupies all the time. These are 20 year old kids. The amount of visibility and ■■■■■■■■ foisted on someone that old is pretty amazing. Kudos to that player. We need more stories about this and fewer stories about Ute fans saying ■■■■■■■ things to players from the stands or on Twitter.

Thanks for sharing this.

Nice of Shaw to do that. I can’t imagine that the school would be upset, gloves are “wear” parts of a uniform. But I understand your reticence.

I’m rather impressed by Jay Shaw’s sportsmanship with your son and his friend. Little things like that go a long way to creating a positive image.

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Really impressive. Top Lad there!

Yeah, the University doesn’t pay jack for any of that stuff, shoes, gloves, etc. All gratis by the equipment companies. They are swimming in gear. Gloves are the least of the free ■■■■ they get. Been that way for years, I remember Byron Wilson and Tyron Tate giving shoes to all the guys on our dorm floor that had the right shoe size. Unfortunately my big clown feet didn’t enable me to benefit.

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Decided to send an email. I sent it to Josh Rebholz who is “Assistant Athletic Director / External Relations”. He also played football at Weber St. This was his response:

“Thank you for this tremendous email. I passed along to Chip and will be sure to tell Jay as well. Really appreciate you taking the time.”

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There you go! Nice move.

You know that was a nice gesture all around.

After after learning that some crook fished my credit card payment check out of a USPS drop box and then washed it (bunch of business travel totaling $11,500), I had a fun morning chasing this down. Because it was fraud, I will be covered and the funds restored. It is likely that Morgan Stanley will recover the funds because the depositing bank typically puts a 3 to 5 day hold on it and I caught it within 2 days. Still, a miserable morning on a day i had off. I got very little done of what I wanted to get done. To read this nice story really makes my day.

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The players get new gloves every game. My kids have gloves from Alex Smith, Paul Krueger, and others

Well done. Never pass up a chance to complement someone sincerely.

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I think it’s totally cool for them to give gloves away. 5 or 6 years ago at the Utah - UCLA game in the Rose Bowl one of the Utah linemen gave my son his gloves as they we’re heading into the locker room following a victory.

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