Sports is Filled With Heroes

Baseball has it’s own breed of heroes. Some suffer untold challenges, some come through trials in triumph and some give and some take. But history confirms that heroes are forged in the fire of adversity and baseball certainly has it’s heroes.

Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005.  It packed 145 mph winds and left more than a million people without power, 1700 were killed and thousands left the city to become refugees.

Tom Walter was the coach at the University of New Orleans and Katrina left his house under 12 feet of water. He was not alone in the chaos, but he was a coach and he had a baseball team to care for.

For months, Walter spent his efforts supervising his team’s temporary relocation to the campus of New Mexico State. He vowed to assist anyone wanting to transfer to another college, a choice many coaches wouldn’t have made. But even with that sacrifice and demonstration of leadership history could have easily forgotten Tom Walter.

Far fewer would have done what Walter did after that. He donated a kidney to Kevin Jordan, one of his players. Kevin was a 19 year old freshman and Walter couldn’t bare to see him languish on dialysis while his life and opportunities passed by. The decision was made.
Baseball is filled with heroes and it’s not the first time it has shown us what real men are made of. The story of Tom Walter and Kevin Jordan resonated from breakfast table to breakfast table across America, but nowhere was it appreciated more than it was in Dallas.

In 2007 the retired Cowboys cornerback Everson Walls donated a kidney to ex-teammate Ron Springs. Walls and Springs had been friends since sports threw them together nearly 30 years before. So when Springs needed a transplant it was a decision Walls could live with.
The transplant raised the inevitable question of whether this violated a longstanding association rule by providing an “extra benefit” to an athlete. A ‘benefit’ was defined as an arrangement not made available to other students. An extra benefit was indeed conferred and it was extraordinary, beyond any rule.

Ron Springs recovered fully from his transplant, but died a few months later while having minor surgery. One hero goes on while another leaves and the story of why one is taken will not be answered in this life. Walter said, “We answer to a higher calling on this one.”
Sports fans have shared the story of these heroes over beers, boating and breakfast and with their children for years. The long-term effect of the sharing of these stories is yet to be seen. As these inspirational stories multiply across the land, they are planted as seeds in the next generation and will eventually come to bloom.

Real heroes are borne not from success and prosperity. They are forged in struggles, tough decisions and in the worst of times. Maybe in you or your child there is a Hero waiting.
While you drive to the Texas State Fair, tell the children the story of Walter and Kevin and Wall and Springs… plant and water the seeds of a new generation of heroes.