As a young boy I grew up, like most kids, looking for role models. Coming from a family in which sports was important I gravitated towards athletes. Pete Rose, O.J. Simpson, and Dr. J were three athletes that I thought were the coolest of the cool. Yep, a gambler, murderer, and a legendary philanderer were my heroes, though I didn't know any of their dirty secrets at the time.
But nobody compared to Bruce Jenner, 1976 Olympic decathlon winner. Here was the greatest athlete in the world, a man among men. He was forever on the box of Wheaties, the stud we all aspired to be. He became a reporter, man about town, race car driver. He was so manly that eventually he replaced Erik Estrada on CHIPS. Sure, it didn't last...but even Estrada never was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
When did it all go wrong? Maybe it was when he appeared on Silver Spoons. Or maybe when he was the star of 'Can't Stop The Music'. But was there ever a point where we could say he was headed towards this bizarre Kardashian/transgender/hit-and-run place he is at now? And what does the seven-year-old within me think of all this?
Heroes are strange things. There's something within us that looks up to certain people, and when those people no longer are what we thought they were (or we realize that they never were what we thought they were to begin with) it affects us. None of these heroes should be blamed for not fulfilling our expectations...but the spotlight can be a very hard thing, not only for the ones under it but the ones watching it.
I suppose I still have heroes, though they are more about genuine character than our imaginations. Heroes in recent years are people I know...a minister friend of mine who died recently after many years of faithful service to the church, or a grandmother who takes her children in when her kids aren't able to raise them well, or a teacher who year after year puts up with the crap of the modern education system because she loves kids. People like this will still fail sometimes, but at least they won't have married a Kardashian.
