There are moments in sports when the scoreboard suddenly doesn't matter.

We witnessed one of those moments Friday night at Indianapolis Lutheran.

During the football game, one of our Linton Miners went down with an injury near midfield. As he remained on the field waiting for an ambulance to arrive, the mood in the stadium changed. Players, coaches, parents, students, and fans watched and waited, worried about a young man we know and love.

And then something happened that I won't soon forget.

We were the visitors that night, sitting in unfamiliar bleachers more than an hour from home, when we noticed a large group of Indianapolis Lutheran students making their way across the field toward us.

At first, we didn't know why they were coming.

Then we learned they had asked if they could pray.

Not for their team.

Not for the outcome of the game.

For our player. Our fans. Our community.

The Indianapolis Lutheran students stretched out in front of the visitors' bleachers, joined hands, and prayed for people many of them had never met.

Think about that for a moment.

These were high school students who had come to cheer for the team wearing the other jersey. We were visitors at their school. But when they saw another teenager hurting and a visiting community worried, they didn't see opponents anymore.

They saw people who needed prayer.

And they responded.

There is plenty of talk about sportsmanship in high school athletics. We tell our students to compete hard, win with humility and lose with grace. We remind them that character matters more than a final score.

Those students didn't just talk about sportsmanship Friday night. They showed us what it looks like.

But I believe what we witnessed went even deeper than sportsmanship.

We witnessed young people who weren't afraid to live out their faith publicly. They saw someone hurting, and their response was to pray. They showed compassion without being asked. They walked across their own football field and stood in front of the visiting bleachers because they believed prayer mattered. I believe it mattered.

We hear plenty about what is wrong with young people today. We worry about the influences surrounding them and wonder whether qualities like compassion, courage, and faith are getting lost somewhere along the way.

Friday night, I saw something very different.

I saw teenagers showing courage.

I saw compassion.

I saw kindness.

I saw an immense love for Jesus.

And I saw a reminder that sometimes the most important lessons taught through high school athletics have absolutely nothing to do with the sport being played.

I don't know the names of all the Indianapolis Lutheran students who walked across that field. But I hope they know that the people sitting in those visitors' bleachers noticed.

Linton noticed.

We noticed your kindness.

We noticed your faith.

We noticed the way you loved our community when we were far from home and scared for one of our own.

And we will remember it.

To the students, families, coaches and community of Indianapolis Lutheran: thank you.

We arrived at your school as your opponent.

But in a frightening moment for one of our own, you made us feel like we weren't away from home at all.

And that is something no scoreboard could ever measure.