Sandy Koufax -

Photo from Popbytes.com

Do you think that Charlie Sheen is a great parenting model? Of course I don’t, but I bet I got your attention? He is a great model of how not to behave, as so many of our so-called “celebrities” are today in abundance.

When I was growing up we had terrific male role models. JFK stood out as the image of a man to me when I was a boy. I was devastated by his assassination. Sports stars were also heroic and in some cases much larger than life, especially to kids. When Sandy Koufax (scroll to the end of this column to see SK in action at his prime) made the difficult choice not to pitch a World Series game because it conflicted with his faith, he showed us what it meant to be a man, let alone a man of faith.

I’m just a guy that misses his heroes. When I grew up, it was easy to know the good guys from the bad guys. In some cases they actually wore white hats. Or, in my first exposure to a movie hero that I remember, it was Steve McQueen as Hilts, the motorcycle-riding, Nazi-defying loner who comes through, in the end, for the guys, in The Great Escape. He was the epitome of cool. I thought policemen were also cool and politicians looked like JFK and were to be respected. Nostalgic times, for sure.

But, it changed. Changed with the sixties, changed with Watergate, changed with Vietnam, and more. The legacy of those years is what our children now live with. Who are their heroes? Do we really want them worshipping all the NBA superstars who are covered with tattoos and whose personal lives are best left for the tabloids? My sports heroes were like Sandy Koufax who stood by his principles and didn’t pitch a World Series game on a religious holiday of significance to him.

Tag Archives: Sandy Koufax

Charlie Sheen Is a Great Parenting Model

Just A Guy That Misses His Heroes