Saturday night was tough for Grand Valley State and the Laker faithful. Not only was the football team eliminated from the Division II playoffs, but its record 40-game winning streak was snapped as well.

While head coach Chuck Martin won’t hoist the national championship trophy for a third straight season after the Lakers fell to Northwest Missouri State in the semifinals, 34-16, he did exhibit tremendous class in the waning moments of the 2007 season.

With three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, and Grand Valley down three scores, Martin walked across the field to the Northwest Missouri State sideline. Martin entered his opponent’s team huddle to let the Bearcat coaches know that he was pulling his starters and was going to run out the clock. The rationale? Martin didn’t want to see anyone on the Northwest Missouri State roster get hurt when the game was already decided.

Grand Valley won its last two national championships with victories over the Bearcats, so Martin has a lot of respect for the Northwest Missouri program. The four-time national champion coach didn’t want to see the Bearcats head into the title game at anything less than full strength because of an unfortunate, unnecessary incident.

Still, for a coach to walk across the field, and into an opposing huddle, is something quite out of the ordinary. It was a superb display of sportsmanship from one of the top coaches in college football.