3 Sports Heroes That Are Actually Heroes By Zachary D. Rymer , The NY Post, Nov 12, 2010

We talk a lot about sports heroes, but how many of them are actually heroes?

To be sure, the very meaning of the word is very different on a day like Veteran's Day, which I suppose is why it's on our minds in the first place.

Indeed, being a hero goes beyond performing physical goals. Every athlete does that. It's their business.

It's the ones who are heroic away from their sport, the ones who sacrifice their time, money, and sometimes even personal well-being to benefit others, that are actually worthy of our admiration.

There are 3 sports heroes who actually deserve to be called heroes.

The first and most well known is Michael Jordan. If you're the skeptical sort, you might be sitting there wondering exactly what Michael Jordan ever did to get his hero status beyond the basketball court. Well, as one great sports writer once put it, Jordan was and still is "the first great athlete of the modern world."

And if I can add my own two cents, I would say that Jordan should perhaps be considered the first great celebrity of the modern world. His appeal as a celebrity had international success and he became a kind of celebrity leader for the modern age.

True, MJ is a little lacking in the personal sacrifice department. But I just think he deserves to be mentioned for starting a revolution that was bigger than sports.

Second has to be Terry Fox. Ever wonder where all those charity runs come from? Fox was a distance runner and basketball player who had his right leg amputated in 1977 after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a cancerous condition.

In 1980, on an artificial leg, Fox began the "Marathon of Hope," a cross- country run across Canada intended to raise money for cancer research. He started at Saint John's and made it as far as Thunder Bay, just outside Ontario, before his worsening condition forced him to stop. He planned to continue his run, but his cancer had spread to his lungs and he died nine months later.

He had raised $1.7 million by the time he was forced to stop the Marathon of Hope.

He is considered a national hero in Canada, and he should be considered a hero in the sports world at large.

Lastly, the third sporting hero is Pat Tillman who cut his football career short so he could enlist in the U.S. Army and fight in the War on Terror.

Tillman was a star for the Arizona Cardinals at the time of the September 11th attacks, and he turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million in May of 2002. He and his brother Kevin, who was a pretty good pitcher in his own right, enlisted in June, and completed basic training in September.

Tillman was killed in action in 2004, which, after some controversy, was revealed to have been due to friendly fire.

As far as sacrifice goes, no modern athlete is anywhere near Tillman's hero level.

These 3 sporting ‘heroes’ sacrificed more than time training for personal goals, they extended their talents off-field as role models of inspiration.