Nation Magazine has a special “sports issue” within which various lefty writers give tribute to their favorite sports heroes – most of them from childhood when we are most influenced by them. Likewise, my favorite sports hero played during my childhood, and I’ll discuss him in a minute.
If you were to ask me about my second favorite hero I would be hard-pressed for an answer. Obviously we look for character as well as skill, and perhaps we look to deeds off the playing field/court. Obviously figures which broke the racial barriers qualify such as Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, and…. well almost, Tiger Woods. We look to Billie Jean King and Shirley Muldowney for examples breaking sexual molds. Or figures like Greg Louganis who won a host of Gold Medals including a performance in which he continued to compete after splitting his head open on the diving platform, and yet was deemed lacking in character and heroism required for the Wheaties recognition because of rumors, later confirmed, of his homosexuality. We have war heroes like Pat Tillman, made even more famous by military controversy rendering him popular even among anti-war activists.
I always liked Rams quarterback Pat Hayden who succeeded despite being short (for an NFL quarterback), and while becoming a Rhodes Scholar.
There are heroes whose careers suffered at least setbacks due to brave political stands such as Muhammed Ali, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and even to a lesser degree John McEnroe who turned down a match against Bjorn Borg in South Africa to honor the boycott of the time – the winner would have taken home one million, the loser $750,000 (Borg had accepted the invitation). By the way, if you’re interested, here is a list of sports figures with their campaign donations. Seems like tennis players (except former teen star Andrea Jaeger who is now a nun and gave to the GOP) and basketball players tend to be liberal, while golf players, car racers, and football coaches (except Bear Bryant, who was a liberal?) tend to be conservative. And there are a few on the list who can’t seem to make up their mind on what their politics are, or completely ignore ideology if they like a particular pol. The link for former Bengals quarterback Boomer Essiason is broken, which makes me curious. He was quite a vocal supporter of the NFL strikers despite a number of quarterbacks (who were of course the best paid) crossing the picket line prompting him to call Joe Montana a “scab.” Of interest in the political evolution department, tennis star Pam Shriver appears to have abandoned her conservative roots – donating to Republicans in her youth, but Democrats later in life, including a donation to Maxine Waters!
Anyway, enough of that. My favorite sports hero is…. Willie McCovey. He exemplified the rags-to-riches phenomena coming from very humble roots. I was only really into baseball from the second grade to about the fifth, when he was traded from the Giants to the Padres. I went to several games a year at Candlestick, and always looked forward to the number 44 visible from our usual seats behind first base. He was a clutch hitter in so many instances. In his last years Willie Mays batted third before McCovey’s “cleanup,” and if Mays made it to second base McCovey was most often walked.
This is a pure sports pic. I mean, other than being a nice guy off the field, his heroism for me is purely on the field and laced with nostalgia. He was there for me at a formative time of childhood. I began to lose interest as a fan when he was traded. I still watched games, but once Bonds, Sr., Tito Fuentes, Juan Marichal, Chris Speier, and McCovey had moved on to other teams or retirement, I stopped going to the green pages every morning to check the stats and standings. McCovery actually came back to the Giants briefl, but as I moved into teen years, I got into other things and didn’t pay as much attention. The Giants always choked anyway.
So who was/is your favorite sports hero and why?
11 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 30, 2011 at 9:24 am
Bolithio
Tony Hawk. I remember seeing Tony Hawk when I was nine or so skate a halfpipe and it changed my life. Not only did he do (and still does) amazing things, he has always been a subtle, yet effective positive influence on youth. If your interested: http://www.tonyhawk.com/bio.html
July 30, 2011 at 9:25 am
Cristina Bauss
You already named my own favorite: Arthur Ashe. I always had a profound respect for him, mainly because the life that he led after leaving tennis eclipsed his athletic stardom. It might have been enough that, growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia – with no access to a tennis court and having to teach himself by bouncing a ball against a wall – he rose to the rank that he did, and ultimately became the first black man to win the Wimbledon title. But instead of basking in glories past, as many former athletes tend to do, he went on to become a political activist (protesting against apartheid before that became de rigueur among celebrities), writer (“A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete”), gifted amateur photographer (he was married to a professional photographer), and ultimately, advocate for people with HIV/AIDS (he was infected with the virus during a blood transfusion). While many people criticized his decision to keep his HIV status private, I respected it because he knew his days with his young daughter were numbered, and he had already spent most of his adult life in the public eye. After having his HIV-positive status exposed by “USA Today,” he became an eloquent spokesman for the cause in a time when people with HIV/AIDS still experienced virulent prejudice (remember Ryan White?).
In its 40th anniversary issue, “40 For the Ages,” “Sports Illustrated” ran a beautiful tribute to Ashe. It’s well worth the read: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/tennis/features/1997/arthurashe/profile.html
July 30, 2011 at 9:56 am
Eric Kirk
Cristina – I think he coached McCenroe for awhile as the Davis Cup team captain, and I always suspected that he influenced McCenroe’s decision to ditch the South Africa offer.
July 30, 2011 at 10:07 am
Erasmus
I had never thought about this question: perhaps sports heroes receive so much adulation during their lifetimes that I didn’t think they deserved “hero” worship — perhaps I don’t accord physical prowess the respect that mental or spiritual greatness elicits from me. Until I read Cristina’s comment on Arthur Ashe, I would have named Lou Gehrig as my most-admired athlete. Now I’ll have to reconsider.
July 30, 2011 at 10:35 am
Lodgepole
Joe Montana. Hell, he beat Dallas. Not only the greatest QB ever, he’s got a great personality. Decent players around Joe became great players.
July 30, 2011 at 10:59 am
Eric Kirk
Lodgepole – that first superbowl season was magical. What was funny was that Glen Dickey had written the year before that Bill Walsh was making a career mistake by replacing DeBerg with Montana as first stringer. DeBerg was actually pretty good, but Montana may very well be the best quarterback in history excepting maybe Roger Staubach. He and Walsh converted a bottom basement team into a superbowl winner in two years, and without a running game!
July 30, 2011 at 11:28 am
Jon Brooks
Aside from impact on society, just purely sports, maybe George Blanda? Old, used up, , beat up, modestly talented, place kicker/ backup quarterback for the Raiders in the days when they really were cool. He bridged the gap between despised ‘mad bomber’ LaMonica and ‘snake’ Kenny Stabler. I don’t recall how many times he was put into a game, late, losing, and pulled out a win, sometimes quarterbacking, sometimes kicking and sometimes both, but it was a lot. True sports grit. Died earlier this year, I guess made me think of him.
Willie Mac is a good choice too, he got comeback player of the year award when he came back to the Giants after San DIego. A very sympathetic character. He pronounced his name Mc COVE ey, just like local Indian family, but early on he was too young/shy/southern rural black to correct white peoples pronunciation, so it stuck and mis-pronunciation endures today. I recall hearing excruciating post-game radio interviews with him, answers like ‘yes’, ‘thats right’, and ‘uh-huh’ followed by long silences, rarely a complete sentence. Something akin to the sports version of “the kings speech”. But he worked at it and largely overcame his debilitating shyness. He’d be a good choice for that off-field courage in addition to his play.
July 30, 2011 at 2:26 pm
pathetic actually
I’ve always loved Arthur Ashe, too–from watching him play tennis, when I always rooted for him, to his reluctant career as an aids activist. There’s not much to add to Cristina’s recap, except that he was a very nice and genuine person compared to so many pro athletes–or so it seemed to little kid me.
And then there’s Roberto Clemente, whose charitable efforts led to his death, by all popular accounts. As the story goes, Clemente was a leader in relief efforts for Nicaraguans affected by a large earthquake in Managua in 1972(?). After the first three planeloads of supplies were apparently appropriated by the Somoza regime, Clemente decided to go himself with load #4. The plane crashed, and Clemente was never seen again–helping others less fortunate than himself, or wearing his familiar #21 for the Pirates. I think he’s the only baseball player ever to have the distinction of being elected to the Hall of Fame without the usual 5 year waiting period for getting in–elected not quite unanimously, only months after his death.
July 30, 2011 at 5:11 pm
moviedad
There are lots of great athletes that have emerged throughout the years. But unless you’re talking about amateur sports; you’re talking about professional sports. Which is nothing more than a stadium distraction and card-game for the wealthy. Money corrupts completely.
How about favorite millionaire, or favorite soap, or favorite hypocrite, or favorite lobbyist, or king, or prison warden…
July 30, 2011 at 6:58 pm
Mitch
There are some pretty remarkable sports heroes in the current or last issue of The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_gourevitch
August 2, 2011 at 11:29 am
kevpod
My favorite is Willie Mays for his classic public service ad cautioning children not to play with blasting caps that they may find near construction sites.