Judgment Calls

[Thumb Up]To Virginia basketball All-America Dawn Staley, for talking a 16-year-old Charlottesville girl out of committing suicide. Staley persuaded the girl, a basketball fan, not to jump off the top of a building.

[Thumb Up]To the NFL, for distributing 20 million sets of football cards to fourth-graders. The cards feature photos of NFL stars on the front, and lessons on health and the environment on the back.

[Thumb down]To the National Rifle Association, for strong-arming Sears, Roebuck and Co. into rescinding its agreement with a stuffed animal manufacturer, which was to donate 8% of the proceeds from the sale of its products through Sears to the Humane Society, an organization the NRA considers "radical."