Good at Athletics = Heroic?

It's Friday, and we here at the Henderson's are very ready for a cocktail hour.  It's been quite a week for us, and while we are thankful for staying away from the horrid flu epidemic, we are still 'sick' over the repeated news about athletes and their choices in life.  Seriously, how is whether someone's girlfriend was 'real' or 'memorex' the subject of national news?  Oprah interviews someone and for weeks we hear about what the subject of the interview is and even what was said...This is important?  No one gets put into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, because they were all a bunch of cheaters.  Disturbing, yes.  A good discussion for your Little League team, maybe. National news?  No. After all  these humans are not above the rest of us in character - they are just good at a sport.  The main tagline for the media this week is how distraught we are at the way our heroes have disappointed us.  When did being a good athlete become equal to being a heroic person? 
Certainly, there are the rare humans who have been both, and we don't want to diminish them, but in general, being a great athlete doesn't require that you are a hero. Following the rules isn't a heroic thing to do. It just makes you a fair competitor.  Athletes are just humans with special abilities.  Choosing to build on those abilities through hard work and commitment is not heroic.  Admirable certainly, but not a thing that prevents human failures that are embarrassing once revealed.   It seems that somewhere along the line of history we forgot that the Greek mythical Olympic figures didn't really exist, nor were they able to be recreated in real life. One can only hope that the recent events will remind us of this, and help assure that we pass this along to our children and grandchildren.  Perhaps then we won't be so shaken when the next revelation about an athlete comes down the pike.
True heroism is available to anyone who chooses to act in that split second to do something they might not have done if given a chance to really think about it.  Heroic action is something we can all hope would emerge if needed.  A great philosopher said that a hero is something we should aspire to, rather than to just appear one.  
So tonight, we are drinking something called a "Jekyll and Hyde" in recognition of the two sides of heroism.  There's the action and then there's the human behind the action.  Celebrate one, but accept both.  That is how we would want others to treat us, right? CHEERS FRIENDS!