What our response to someone else's mistake says about us

What happens when one of the state's most dynamic and talented three-sport athletes has his most difficult sports moment go viral on YouTube? When that athlete is Spanish Fork's Jason Money, it reveals the character within him.

That's how I began a story I wrote more than a decade ago for my sports magazine, Preps Utah.

Money was an 18-year-old quarterback who made a mistake on a football field at Provo High School during a state tournament play-in game against rival Maple Mountain. Within 24 hours, video of the mistake had spread across the country, and a young man accustomed to receiving positive attention for his athletic accomplishments suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a national media feeding frenzy.

What disappointed me most wasn't the reaction of a few immature fans. It was watching national sports networks seize on the video and broadcast a teenager's most embarrassing athletic moment to the world.

I had long since abandoned my childhood dream of becoming an ESPN anchor, but I still believed sports journalism ought to be about something more than finding new ways to humiliate people.

Why do we feel such a need to ridicule others?

Is our own self-esteem so fragile that we somehow feel bigger by making someone else smaller? Do we think the person who made the mistake somehow failed to notice it, and it's our responsibility to point it out? Or have we simply become a bunch of classless jerks who can't help ourselves?

Fortunately, Jason Money wasn't an ordinary high school quarterback. He leaned on his faith, his friends and his family, turning what could have been a devastating experience into an opportunity for personal growth.

And now, more than a decade later, here we are again. An athlete I have had the supreme pleasure to interview and write about in in the crosshairs.

A young woman who represents so much of what we hope our young adults will become makes a mistake on a basketball court at New Mexico State University, and the tentacles of ridicule begin spreading almost immediately.

It starts with a single social media post. Within minutes, an astonishing number of people apparently can’t resist the urge to share it, adding their own commentary along the way.

Never mind that the Aggies overcame the mistake and won the game at the buzzer. That should have been the story. Instead, the spotlight shifted to a player who had made an error.

And once again, it wasn't just social media. Professional sports outlets joined the parade, amplifying the embarrassment to audiences who otherwise might never have seen it.

There's a difference between reporting what happened in a sporting event and turning someone's worst moment into entertainment. The fact that a video is attracting attention doesn't automatically make it worthy of more attention. Journalists make decisions every day about what deserves to be shared, and those decisions ought to involve something more than counting clicks. I wonder how many of those who shared the video gave a moment's thought to the person on the other end of the ridicule.

Her name is Emma Christiano.

Emma was one of the first people I wrote about after moving to Las Cruces. I came away from our interview impressed by her positive outlook, her enthusiasm and the way she seems to make the people around her feel better about themselves. The kids at the Boys & Girls Club know that side of Emma. So do countless others whose lives she has touched.

She is precisely the kind of young person we ought to be celebrating. And, fortunately, she is surrounded by a powerful network of people who love and support her. Combined with her own strength of character, that gives me every confidence she will be fine.

But my worry is for the rest of us. When will we learn that kindness is always better than mockery?

When I was about Emma's age, I came across a parable about a bucket and a dipper. The premise was simple. We all carry an invisible bucket filled with the things that sustain us — our confidence, our self-worth, our sense that we matter.

And we all carry a dipper.

Every interaction with another person gives us an opportunity to use that dipper. We can add something to someone else's bucket, helping build their confidence and sense of worth. Or we can reach in and take something away.

Too often, we seem determined to do the latter.

Someone spills a glass of milk. They know they've spilled it. They're already embarrassed, perhaps even humiliated. But rather than help clean up the mess, we rush to announce the spill to everyone within earshot.

And now, with a phone in every hand and an audience just a click away, we can make sure the whole world sees it. We don't stop to consider what's happening inside the person who made the mistake. We don't know how full that person's bucket was to begin with, or how many others have already taken a dip. We just reach in again.

Jason Money had the character and support to rise above his moment of embarrassment. I have every confidence Emma Christiano will do the same.

But not everyone has that strength. Not everyone has that support. And none of us knows when the next person we choose to ridicule might be someone whose bucket is already nearly empty.

Imagine the difference we could make if, instead of racing to share someone's embarrassment, we were just as eager to share their accomplishments. If we looked for opportunities to build people up rather than finding amusement in tearing them down.

We can't undo someone else's mistake. But we can decide what we do in the moments that follow. We can use our dippers to take something away, or we can use them to give something back.

A mistake on a football field or basketball court doesn't define a person's character. But the way we treat someone who makes that mistake just might define ours.