Heroes

Our modern society doesn't permit most heroes to last long on their pedestals. Thanks to the Internet, 24/7 Cable News, tweets, and other instantly available information, every wart, every instance of bad behavior and indeed just an ordinary manifestation of human nature is quickly seized upon to tear down our (mostly undeserving) heroes.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sports world where new heroes emerge as quickly as others are shamed. Sadly, so many of the disgraced idols are revered by the youth of America, fueled by incredible commercial exploitation. Thus the old maxim that the higher one rises, the more swiftly one falls is constantly in evidence today. Many of these individuals should, of course, never been considered heroes (except by their sponsors). Consider a few examples:

GILBERT ARENAS The eccentric (and of course wildly overpaid) Washington Wizards star has been totally unmasked as nothing more than a thug by bringing guns into the Wizards' locker room, allegedly brandishing one at a teammate, who may have reciprocated, and then mocking the whole process in a pregame exhibition of arrogance and stupidity. Could anyone possibly still admire him for any reason?

TIGER WOODS More the darling of corporate America than young people who tend to concentrate on team sports (fantasy golf anyone?) no one in or out of sports has better exemplified the rapid plummet from grace (as well as providing incredible fodder for the sensationalist media)as Tiger. Obviously his image team had done a masterful job in portraying the admittedly superior golfer as some sort of superior human being. Interesting that of his many embarrassed major sponsors, only Nike which peddles athletic equipment not "prestige" products or services, appears to be ready to stick with Tiger indefinitely.

BRIAN KELLY The much admired football coach who brought the previously obscure University of Cincinnati team to the 2010 Sugar Bowl game quit 2 weeks before such game to take a more lucrative job at Notre Dame. His shocked team was thereupon annihilated by Florida 51-24. Speaking of the disgusting record of college coaches how about MIKE LEACH of Texas Tech, outstanding molder of "student-athletes" who was fired just before the Alamo Bowl (won by his team) for abusing a player who had complained of a concussion. There are few heroes among the college coaching fraternity (see payoffs to recruits among other examples of "heroic" conduct).

Of course, we also have many former heroes in baseball, such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire all tarnished by steroids after all attaining the pinnacle of admiration.

Who to believe in, admire, even consider a hero? Not exactly glamorous icons to be fawned upon but how about firefighters, police officers, emergency room personnel, the military? Just not the American way, is it?