They say sports is a microcosm of society.

If they are right ...

As someone who loves sports, this past week was demoralizing. From Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson and everything the NFL either screwed up or covered up in between.

I found myself longing to be one of those sportswriters on the trains in the 1930s. Legend has it one day a woman ran naked through the press car, only to be followed a few seconds later by a naked Babe Ruth. Shortly after they ran by, a sportswriter stood up and announced, "Too bad we didn't see that or else we'd have to report it."

I'm not even counting the Atlanta Hawks racism saga or Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton getting beaned in the face with a fastball.

It all began to run together. I knew the Bills were staying in Buffalo, and the sanctions were lifted at Penn State this past week.

Nothing. The joy that sports always has delivered disappeared for a short time.

And then the Cincinnati Bengals helped bring it back.

Only a few years ago, the Bengals were an embarrassment. Losers on the field with more than a dozen players who had been arrested in a short period of time. Now they have made the playoffs three years in a row and are even bigger winners off the field.

Third-year defensive tackle Devon Still was not playing well. He clearly was losing his spot on the team, and the Bengals knew why. His 4-year-old daughter, Leah, was undergoing stage IV cancer treatments. If the Bengals cut him, as his performance dictated, Still would lose his health insurance.

Cincinnati released Still anyway, but signed him to the 10-man practice squad. By doing so, he drew a much smaller salary but kept his health insurance.

That's not all. The Bengals announced this past week the proceeds from all Still jersey sales would go to benefit pediatric cancer research. More Still jerseys were sold than of any Bengals player in any week. Ever.

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton heard about the story while driving home from practice a few days ago. He bought 100 jerseys.

When asked about the outpouring, Still told the Cincinnati Enquirer, "It just shows how much the world of sports has an impact on what's going on in this world."

We know that. It's just some weeks the effects are not the kind we want.

The story gets better. Still slowly is regaining the form that made him a second-round pick in 2012. On Wednesday, he was promoted to the active 53-man roster. His pay more than quadrupled.

Leah's fight and how the sports world responds is not a unique story.

Earlier this year, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo was asked to donate some used cleats for an auction. When he found out the event was to help pay for a 10-month-old's operation for a brain disorder, he wrote a check for $83,000 to pay for all of it instead. Ronaldo did the same for a 9-year-old's cancer treatments two years earlier.

This past Thursday generated many stories of connections that those in sports have made with families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001. One of them was a 10-year-old girl who wrote Derek Jeter a letter after her father (a pilot) was killed that fateful day. Thirteen years later, still friends, she is fighting leukemia and Jeter is calling her regularly to offer support.

If sports is a microcosm of society, then there is a lot to celebrate.

Some weeks you just need to look for it or hear about it more than others.