General: We need all types of heroes

In the wake of the brutal attack on thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11th, and in light of the courageous and noble acts in the face of that attack, which were performed by the men and women who volunteer to risk their lives to protect us, sports fans and sports writers alike have been reluctant to utter the word hero when discussing athletes and their exploits.

While our wariness is understandable, we needn't forever refrain from using the term hero to describe the men and women whose physical accomplishments are an inspiration to many.

It does not diminish the term if we use it to describe athletes, while also using it to describe our brave firefighters and soldiers. We must remember why heroes are important to us as a society. We must remember why, as individuals, we need and want heroes at all.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines a hero as (among other things): A mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; an illustrious warrior; a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities; one that shows great courage; or an object of extreme admiration and devotion.

Few would doubt that firefighters, police officers, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines often display the courage and other noble qualities capable of inspiring the type of admiration necessary to make one our hero.

Some may doubt that scholars, politicians, business leaders, teachers, social workers, construction workers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and, yes, athletes, perform deeds of such value and nobility that they too should be honored with the same term, but they do.

Our twenty-first-century lives are multi-faceted and complex, and so must be the mix of heroes to whom we pay tribute.

Firefighters are the popular hero of the moment, and they deserve their moment in the sun. The courage shown by the FDNY in those harrowing moments of September 11 will live with most Americans and other good citizens of the world as long as we live, and beyond.

A century ago, as our great cities were under the constant threat of destruction by fire, firefighters were the heroes of the day. Many early-twentieth-century silent films displayed firefighters' courage and bravery as popular entertainment. Somewhere between then and September 10, 2001 we lost sight of the value of firefighters.

It is, of course, a shame that a calamity of the magnitude of the attack on the Twin Towers was necessary for us to once again fully appreciate the nature of the work of "the bravest," for in reality they were simply doing the same thing that Tuesday morning in September that they always do. An act, admittedly, which by its very nature, is heroic.

To run into a burning, crumbling building is perhaps the quintessential act of selfless courage. As such, we are once more holding firefighters up, rightly, as people to emulate. Not that most of us will ever be confronted with the need to run into a burning building. Thankfully for us, there are brave men and women who have volunteered themselves to perform that task for us. To them, we are finally saying thanks for years of service in the shadows with little recognition.

Still, to call them heroes is more than just to say thank you, or we respect you. To call someone a hero says much more. It says we draw inspiration from you.

If they can do "that," we say to ourselves, then we have to be able to face our fears. For surely, the brave have fears too. We admire them. We know we are better for having witnessed their bravery.

In a similar manner, many of us admire and anoint great thinkers as our heroes. Whether it be Plato or Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo DaVinci or Albert Einstein, great thinkers take us to places human beings have never been before. They raise the level of understanding we have of the world around us, and make our all too complicated world seem somehow comprehensible. At the very least, they make us think.

This is true even if we don't understand everything they said or wrote. Their striving for knowledge, pushing the limits of human understanding, is truly heroic.

Like a firefighter's bravery, a great scholar's use of intellect inspires us to reach our full potential. It opens the door to the possible. We admire them, and are better for sharing in their intellectual gifts.

Others seek and find heroes closer to home. In the daily struggle to survive, the striving for a better life. Many of us see our parents as heroes, fighting the odds to give us the best they could.

A father cleaning toilets as a second job after putting in a full days work at another grueling job to give his kids the best chance possible. He is a hero.

A single mother working all day as a housekeeper, working her fingers raw, to put food on the table and a roof over her children's heads. She is a hero.

A friend helping a friend in a time of crisis ... is most certainly a hero.

Like all our chosen heroes, the heroes in our homes, in our lives, inspire us, pushing us toward our better selves. That is what being a hero is all about.

So, are our well-heeled, sometimes spoiled athletes, heroes? Absolutely. Like all of the previously mentioned heroes, great athletes have the ability to lift us, to make us better than we might otherwise be.

Each time Michael Jordan soared from the foul line to dunk a basketball with seeming ease, he lifted us. When Babe Ruth sent titanic home runs from one ball field after another, he lifted us. As Pele hit a perfect bicycle kick just under the crossbar, he lifted us. Whenever any highly trained athlete shows us maximum concentration in the face of a myriad distractions, he or she lifts us.

It is our realization that someone of our kind, a homo sapien, can do the incredible, the valiant, the profound that makes the act performed take on an heroic significance. Athletes, firefighters, scholars, moms and dads can surely all be heroes.

We must always remember, however, that the people who we elevate to the status of modern-day hero are not in fact the near-perfect heroes of Greek mythology. They are flesh and blood -- prone to error -- and in the end, like us, all too human.

Although we rightly perceive our heroes actions to be an indication of an ability or character trait, which enhances and ennobles humankind, it would be foolish to attribute such ennobling behavior to any human being across all aspects of his or her life.

If we naively believe that any person will always act in an heroic fashion we will surely be disappointed. This is true whether that person is a firefighter or father ... astronaut or athlete. There is no need to list examples from history. There are far too many to list anyway, both distant in time and recently.

If, however, we see our heroes as we should, as limited role models, then their existence can propel all of us forward. They are modern myths of our own design. We can take great strength and comfort from the wonderful gifts our heroes give us, if we are careful to see the heroes we've created for the myths that they are.

If we foolishly believe in our heroes' actual perfection, we will always find the idol has feet of clay. We will end up feeling deceived and betrayed, but, we are the ones at fault not those whom we have elevated.

Let's be clear. The argument here is not that society's need for athletes, and firefighters or hard striving parents is equal. Clearly, a society can survive more easily without athletes than without firefighters or good parents.

Instead, the argument is simply that we should honor heroes from all walks of life, and in all worthwhile human endeavors. There is no shame in this.

Athletic heroes, like all other heroes in our lives, serve a noble purpose so long as we remember that the hero is not actually the person, but the myth we have created. There is no need to fear our need for many types of heroes, or to fear belittling those who risk their lives by holding athletes among our heroes.

When we honor athletes as heroes, all we are being is human. We are expressing our yearning to be the best we can be, in every way that we can be best.