A great story and a grand gesture

Hey, Ken McDonald just set himself quite apart from other college basketball coaches. Read on and be prepared to be amazed:

WKU fans get apology and check from McDonald
Rick Bozich
December 23, 2010

Wednesday night was not the first time this season that Western Kentucky basketball coach Ken McDonald was less than thrilled with the results delivered by his basketball team.

On Dec. 1, WKU visited Vanderbilt — and lost by 20 to the Commodores. The Hilltoppers were sloppy with the basketball. They were outscored 35-17 in the first half. They turned the ball over 21 times. And they made only 4 of 20 three-point shots.

McDonald was not pleased with the performance of his team — and said so in a letter that he sent to about 20 WKU fans who traveled to Nashville and sat in the team seats behind the WKU bench. McDonald also calculated the mileage costs involved for the fans who drove from Bowling Green to Nashville for the game and wrote personal checks for $60 to each of those fans, WKU senior associate athletic director Todd Stewart said on Thursday.

Stewart said several fans have already returned the checks and to his knowledge none has cashed one.  "Several even sent notes saying that teams can have bad games and no check was necessary," Stewart said...

The entire article is here but the above paragraphs are the salient parts.