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CONFESSIONS OF A HERO-WORSHIPER
John Unitas was my first hero, not counting Samson, the biblical strongman whose miraculous exploits I read about over and over in a Bible stories comic book when I was about 9 or 10. Johnny U., as he was known in the sports pages of the Baltimore Sun, didn’t have the flowing long hair or massive chest of the illustrated Samson. In fact, he was skinny, bow-legged and a bit awkward, except when he was throwing the football. But he was real. And growing up in a small Maryland town, I could see him every Sunday on TV or listen to his feats of bravery on the radio. He, too, wrought miracles, turning my beloved Baltimore Colts into world champions in 1958 and ’59 with his strong arm, clever mind, steely nerves and courageous heart. Each week he would lead his troops into battle against enemies like the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears and win time and again with his last-minute precision passes to Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore and Jimmy Orr. But he was just doing his job, hardly allowing himself a smile as the fans at sold-out old Memorial Stadium roared in adoration. Unitas was an NFL quarterback for 18 years, 17 of them with the Colts, and is widely considered the best there was, even though he didn’t have the looks, grace or flash of the Joe Namaths, Joe Montanas or John Elways he paved the way for. His death from a heart attack last week, at the age of 69, came as a shock to me and brought back a flood of memories from those days of my — and his — youth (he was only 25 in 1958) when life seemed simpler, sports more pure, and heroes more deserving of youthful adoration. Kids always have heroes, starting with their parents, and it’s common in our society to move on, as we grow, to someone a bit larger than life, in the public eye, like a sports figure, politician, actor, actress, or rock star, maybe even a fictional cartoon character. What does this say about us, and why do we so often idolize strangers as we move toward adolescence? I spoke with Stephen Dubner, the former New York Times reporter who just wrote a book called Confessions Of A Hero Worshipper, the story of his youthful infatuation with Franco Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers football star of the 1970s. The book is due out in January and explores, Dubner says, the psychological and spiritual aspects of our need, as children, to project our dreams and desires onto someone else. Dubner says his great interest in Harris began in 1972 when the Steeler star made what is known as “the immaculate reception,” a miraculous 60-yard catch on the last play of the game to beat the Oakland Raiders in a title game, taking Pittsburgh to its first Super Bowl. Dubner was 9 at the time and growing up in an intense home, the youngest of eight children. His last book, Turbulent Souls, poignantly describes his parents’ separate conversions from Judaism to Catholicism, their deeply devout family life and his own return to Judaism. “I was a Catholic boy on the lookout for miracles and that catch was more miraculous than you could imagine,” he said. The infatuation with Harris deepened after Dubner’s father died the next year and the football star became “a savior to me — I often dreamed he came to rescue me.” The book tells Dubner’s story, how the infatuation grew into a kind of obsession, and how, many years later, the author sought out and met Harris. Their relationship as adults does not make for a simple or fully satisfying story, only a real one, and along the way Dubner learns a great deal about heroes, and himself. My interest in John Unitas (he hated “Johnny”) was nowhere near as intense, and I soon matured, imagining myself Brooks Robinson, of my beloved Orioles (as I sometimes still do). I did meet Unitas once, in the mid-1980s, and the encounter was not quite what I had hoped it would be. We were among the few passengers on a 7 a.m. flight from Baltimore to Detroit on a gray winter morning. As I approached the gate, I recognized him from the back by his outdated crew cut and distinct walk, now almost a hobble. I nodded a greeting, he nodded back, and I soon found myself mumbling about what a fan I was of his — the kind of thing he no doubt heard dozens of times every day. He gave me a quick thanks and smile and turned to his newspaper. (What did I expect?) There was no spark or connection, no ability on my part to articulate all he had meant to me in my youth. Just the reality, for me, of moments cherished, moments lost. As part of my work, I have met many legendary figures and often been disappointed at seeing their strong egos, up close. I still have a few heroes, like Elie Wiesel, always a teacher, willing to speak his conscience, and Natan Sharansky, who knowingly gave up his icon status after years in Soviet jails to enter the fray of Israeli politics. But I have also learned, as so many of us have after Sept. 11, to appreciate the everyday heroes in our lives, the firemen and policemen and rescue workers whose job it is to save others. They remind us to look closer to home for authentic heroes, not in distant ballparks or on giant movie screens. Stephen Dubner says he ended his new book with a prayer for his children that they become their own heroes. He cites the passage for me in “Pirkei Avot,” the “Ethics of the Fathers” (chapter 4, verse 1), that says a hero is one who overcomes his own temptations. It is natural, even healthy, for us to have larger-than-life figures to emulate as we grow, and I will always thrill to the image, frozen in time, of a calm John Unitas surveying the field, about to take the snap from center and let fling a bullet pass. But our sages understood the difference between image and essence, teaching that our goal should be to live a life of goodness — not as an example for others, but to honor the spark of holiness in each of us.
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