I love athletics. Sports provided the stage for me to learn how to act — not a bad way to figure out life! Among the most striking lessons I've learned is the importance of fairness. "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matthew 7:12). It's playing by the rules, showing respect for others and oneself. Most important, fairness means having integrity and remembering that I am a child of God and so is everybody else.

I'll never forget a lesson I learned about this principle during a Provo High School basketball game. Our rival was Orem High School, the team we later beat to win the state championship. The excitement was so widespread that the game was played in the BYU Marriott Center to accommodate the crowd. College scouts were watching and I felt pressure to perform well, but my emotions ran away with me and by the third quarter I had four personal fouls.

I told the coach not to take me out, but when the man I guarded faked a shot, up I went, coming down with my hands around his neck to break my fall. I fouled out and lost my cool as I walked off the court protesting unfairness and acting half my age.

But fairness also means that we sow what we reap. Later that week, while still mad about the "unfair" fouls, I received a letter I'll never forget. It was from a man who followed my father's basketball career at BYU. He chastised me for unsportsmanlike conduct, reminding me that my father never behaved so poorly. He challenged me to change my ways and show integrity in the future. My feelings were hurt, until I realized that this letter was a gift I needed to accept.

Since then I've never forgotten the importance of acting with integrity, sportsmanship and fairness in athletics and in life. I ask myself if my father would approve my actions and silently realize another Father is also watching and smiling when I remember who I am.

There is no better place to learn principles of fairness than within the temple, where everyone is equal and all thoughts are directed toward eternal progression. But wherever we are, remembering who we are and WHOSE we are, prove fundamental steps toward acting the part of heavenly children. "He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness" (2 Nephi 26:33).

As Thomas Jefferson said, "It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice."

Fair enough? Fair enough.

Gifford Nielsen, president of the Houston Texas South Stake, is a former quarterback for the BYU and Houston Oilers football teams and member of the College Football Hall of Fame.