Sports Heroes

Real Heroes vs. Sports Heroes
By D.C. Copeland

Today the Miami Herald ran their annual pro and college football special edition. It was an amazing thing to see and hold-- it could easily replace light dumbbells for a workout. It had 6 sections, 74-pages with full color/full depth covers of serious, stoic players. Only one guy was frowning this time-- probably because he was a college player and wasn't getting paid copious amounts of money yet. Daunte Culpepper, the new Dolphins quaterback was almost smiling which is understandable since he has a lot on his mind right now considering the still questionable strength of the repair to his devastating knee injury (something local TV still likes to show over and over again and something we still can't watch). Now don't get us wrong, the staff at MVB loves football. We believe it is the nearly perfect game that combines suspense, action, brute strength and violence with athleticism and balletic beauty. But that doesn't mean we aren't tired of seeing athletes made into heroes. It is our contention that our community should also allocate time and media space for the unsung heroes, the ones "who live lives of quiet desperation," who get up every morning to go to work to make ends meet, who struggle to keep a family together despite working for minimum wage. ABC News recognizes the worthy in their Friday "Person of the Week." The Miami Herald and local TV could do the same. These kind of awards and recognition are not only good for the spirits of those being honored, they're good for us too because they remind us, if nothing else, that someone a lot like us-- maybe even someone who is worse off than we are-- can make the effort to not only keep on keeping on but takes it a step further by giving something back to the community.

With that in mind, we would like to bring recognition to those in our community who really deserve it. We can't gurantee an award each week but when we are reminded by one or more people who continue to "put up the good fight," you can bet they will be recognized with a "Thelma Award."

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