By Jacob Christner
As I write this, I am watching “Petty Blue”, a documentary narrated by Kevin Costner. I’m currently on the part where he was in his last race, and after a wreck, the team, and Richard himself, willed that car to race the final lap for the farewell to the fans. It was the perfect goodbye.
That brings me back to my heroes. I can say all my heroes went out with the perfect goodbye…sans one. I’ll go into that in a future piece.
Imagine, if you will, a hick from a small town in French Lick, Indiana. He looked like a 6’10” dump truck driver or trash man. He didn’t wear the fanciest close or drive the fanciest cars…hell, his whole identity was a beat up pickup truck and a crusty old fishing boat. He didn’t fly like Jordan, or move swiftly like most of the players in the league, but when Larry Bird played basketball, it was poetry in motion.
I was a skinny, awkward kid, so watching that guy dominate superior athletes gave me very unrealistic hope as a kid. On the surface, he was slow and jumped like he had concrete shoes. In reality, he probably had the greatest hand eye coordination, greatest hands, and he transcended the whole small forward position. There is no LeBron James without Larry Bird, and I promise LeBron would agree. I don’t think I saw a Sunday afternoon loss from the Celtics at Boston Garden till 1990, and I started watching them in 1984. You knew they were going to win, be it dominant or a huge comeback. Larry Bird wasn’t going to let us down.
Then his body let him down. He got injured more and more. He missed more and more games. Started with his elbow, then his back, then bone spurs in both heels, then his back got worse. He got slower, and it got to the point where he had to lay flat on his stomach instead of sitting down on the bench. Yet, when he did play, there was always just a little bit of magic left. It made you believe he’d will that team to one more ring. It never happened, but at least he got one more memorable Boston Garden playoff game, and a gold medal in the Olympics. Perfect way to go out.
Not all my heroes were the everyday schlub. Walter Payton and Andre Dawson were the perfect athletes, with bodies that looked like the immaculate conception. Dawson was the first baseball player I ever saw with huge muscles. That is second nature in sports now(even golfers are jacked), but most athletes looked closer to insurance salesmen when I grew up. Dawson wasn’t the first baseball player I liked(that would be Leon Durham), but he was the first one that got my attention. Power hitting cleanup guy with a rocket arm in right field, and crazy hustle from the first inning to the last. He hustled despite both knees being bone on bone from the years on astroturf in Montreal.
(You’ll notice one word that my heroes have in common…HUSTLE. They all had it)
Walter Payton was part of my Sundays growing up also…at least for three years. Didn’t watch the Bears lose two games in a row till 1987. It was past his prime, but he still pushed for that one extra yard, never ran out of bounds, probably the greatest blocking running back ever, and once even played quarterback in a game. To this day, he was probably the greatest overall offensive player in NFL history. The fans that got to grow up with Payton are the same as me growing up watching Bird. The memories are forever.
I can’t finish this piece without mentioning my influence with the type of sports heroes I chose…my father. You wouldn’t go through a ballgame of some type without him yelling “MOVE, MOVE MOVE, HUSTLE, RUN, MOVE” during a game at least five times. Whether it was the star, or the guy on the bench, he loved hustle.
A quick story to tell. Dad passed away in March of 2010, and a month later, I watched a tennis player named David Ferrer for the very first time. He became my immediate favorite. Little bulldog of a player that didn’t have any one real weapon, but he had a great feel for the game, and he just chased EVERYTHING down. If he played in below zero weather, he’d probably lose twenty pounds of sweat. He never out-served anyone, never outhit anyone, wasn’t the greatest athlete on the court, didn’t have any memorable shots of note.
Yet he won almost thirty tournaments, got to a grand slam final, and got to #3 in the world. I smiled at his final grand slam tournament. Blew his hamstring against Nadal in the first round, but still chased one more down and hit a beautiful down the line forehand. What a way to go.
So yes, it’s why I loved the ones in the past, it’s why I was a Ferrer fan, why I was a Mitch Trubisky fan, why I liked Tebow, and anyone else with hustle.
It’s how I grew up. It’s what I know
