Another Sports Hero Falls- Legless Olympian

It was just months ago that I was shedding tears over Oscar Pistorius at the Summer Olympics. The only time I rooted against our US Team was for South Africa when this legless wonder ran for the SA track team. They won a medal in a relay and so Oscar was the first disabled athlete to compete on a regular Olympic stage (not the Para-Olympics- he had already conquered them) and then WIN A MEDAL! I cried tears of joy for him when they won.

Of course they showed his back story – what a tear jerker that was as well.

Yet now, Oscar Pistorius is the one shedding tears. In a courtroom. On charges that he murdered his girlfriend in cold blood – four bullets worth – on Valentine’s Day no less.

At first I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, I was still remembering the back story of a determined legless youth who wanted to run like the wind and then compete against able-bodied athletes.

And then I started reading about the violence of his past, his other volatile relationships and most recently the domestic violence charges in this relationship and calls to police.

He had an ugly side to him after all. None that was shown in the Olympics back story. He was trouble before and in trouble.

Now he faces life in prison.

What a year – Joe Paterno, Lance Armstrong and now Oscar Pistorius. It is almost as if JJ Watts is the last sports hero left.

 

One comment

  • Being an old cynic, I am not one for hero worship. Still, it is depressing that all of them are falling so rapidly. But the day I heard that Gandhi was a wife-beater and drove his son to suicide was the day I stopped believing in heroism. A person can do wonderful things, but he is still human. That means you will find flaws of one size or another in that person’s life.

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