--- --- # Middle School Basketball Players Walk Off Court to Defend Bullied Classmate by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 12, 2015 7:14 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 12, 2015 7:14 PM UTC Desiree Andrews is a cheerleader at Lincoln Middle School in Kenosha, Wisc., and during a recent basketball game, a few players noticed people in the stands were harassing her. They stood up, walked off the court and told the people in the crowd to stop bullying Andrews, who has Down syndrome, NBC affiliate TMJ4 [reports](http://www.jrn.com/tmj4/news/Basketball-players-defend-cheerleader-targeted-by-bully-295810851.html). “It’s not fair when other people get treated wrong because we’re all the same,” one of the players, Scooter Terrien, told TMJ4\. “We’re all created the same. God made us the same way.” The players have now started referring to their gym as “D’s House” in her honor. Andrews said the whole thing was “sweet, kind, awesome, amazing.” Middle School Basketball Players Defend Bullied Down Syndrome Student ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3742927/middle-school-basketball-bullied-cheerleader/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3742927/middle-school-basketball-bullied-cheerleader/"},"headline":"Middle School Basketball Players Walk Off Court to Defend Bullied Classmate","datePublished":"2015-03-12T19:14:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:17:38.330Z","description":"She's a cheerleader with Down syndrome and was being harassed by people in the stands","url":"https://time.com/3742927/middle-school-basketball-bullied-cheerleader/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3742927/middle-school-basketball-bullied-cheerleader/","name":"Middle School Basketball Players Walk Off Court to Defend Bullied Classmate"}}]}] ```