I recently saw a commercial that showed a basketball player in the championship game give up possession of the ball by calling attention to the fact that he was the last to touch the ball before it went out of bounds.  The ref didn't see it and was giving possession to the player's team, but this boy told his coach that he touched the ball last.  Much to the frustration of the rest of his teammates, he insisted until the the call was reversed.  The coach backed him up. 

My immediate reaction was "This is great!  With all the value-compromising images we see on TV, how refreshing to see a commercial that promotes choosing the harder right over the easier wrong."

I went in search of the commercial to post on this blog and discovered a lot of people on the web don't share my opinion.

The individual who posted the commercial to You Tube characterized the commercial thus:

A Preposterous commercial, which aired in the winter of 2009-2010. It portrays an alternative universe where referees will undermine their authority and defer judgment to a player as long as that player is acting in an illogical and self-destructive manner, which is something they are expected to do.

It also created quite the response on the Inside Hoops Message board:

It's a difference between good sportsmanship and being an idiot.   It's the championship game!

And on the MetaFilter Community Board there was a huge back and forth between some who find these types of commercials as pushy and subversive and those who think as I do that they are refreshing:

It's not that the values expressed are bad, but historically, appealing to simple pushy virtues has been very much a feature of Fascism.

Virtues are things that most of us usually don't have enough of, but should have more of, and one way to teach people to be more virtuous than they are is show them images of people whose virtue is inspiring.

So what about you?  What is your reaction to this commercial?