You see the word “hero” a lot in America these days. It’s in Mariah Carey songs, on “Spider-Man” posters and is especially used in reference to athletes.
But in my mind, only one athlete is truly a hero. Pat Tillman gave up a $3.6 million football contract to join the Army Rangers in 2002. He was killed in action in Afghanistan on Thursday.
I hate that we have troops in Iraq and the Middle East. I hate that Americans are losing their lives so we can keep gas prices low. But I support our troops because they are people with lives and wives and friends.
Pat Tillman gave depth and dimension to “support our troops.” He was the ultimate soldier.
Pat Tillman was a hero.
Tillman started his football career at Arizona State, where he struck fear into opponents like Oregon’s Akili Smith as a devastating linebacker. He wasn’t big, but he was fierce and tough, and he was Pac-10 defensive player of the year in 1997. He graduated in fewer than four years with a 3.84 grade-point average.
He was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in 1998 and switched to safety. But he was just as fierce and just as tough. In 2000, he broke the Cardinal record for tackles in a season. He declined a lucrative offer from the St. Louis Rams so he could stay in Arizona. That alone made him a hero in the sports world.
But then Sept. 11 happened, and Tillman became a hero in the real world.
Eight months after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Tillman quit football to join the army. He gave up his contract, he gave up the nice cars and the big houses. He gave up the people cheering his name, the media interviews and the autograph requests.
And he really gave it up. He didn’t say a word to the media or any of his teammates. He just went into the service and went to Iraq.
But, for some reason, that made people want more of Pat Tillman. His story spread across the country and infected people like a beautiful virus.
“He what?”
“He gave up how much?”
“And he doesn’t want to talk about it?”
He was all over newspapers and magazines. ESPN honored him with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at its 2003 ESPY Awards show.
I was lucky enough to work at the ESPYs and was lucky enough to meet Pat Tillman Sr. after the show. I told him that, as an aspiring journalist, I admired his son’s will and strength to avoid the media tidal wave.
Pat Sr. just looked tired. I was probably the 207th person to congratulate him. He looked crushed. Now I know why. His son was in Iraq.
After a while, the younger Tillman was shipped to Afghanistan. According to an Army spokesman, Tillman and his unit came under fire at around 6:45 on Thursday night. They jumped out of their vehicles and ran toward the area where the shooting was coming from. After a 20-minute firefight, Tillman and an Afghan militiaman fighting with the Americans were both dead.
In death, Tillman’s story is only drawing more attention. Hundreds of people showed up to a memorial outside the Cardinals’ training facility. Both the Cardinals and the Arizona State Sun Devils will retire his number, and Arizona State is trying to set up a scholarship in his name. The NFL asked for a moment of silence before its amateur draft Saturday.
His family is maintaining a silence to the media, and their comments to the press indicate they will maintain that silence for a long time. Somehow, it seems, Pat would have wanted it that way.
But even if he wouldn’t want us to, for Pat Tillman we mourn. And mourn. And mourn.