Tim Tebow.

I like Tebow but not nearly as much as I like Te'o. Tebow will hopefully work out in the NFL.. he could be useful for someone.

Athletes are not real heroes. Real heroes jump on live grenades to save their buddies. Real heroes volunteer for impossible missions. Real heroes disobey orders from higher headquarters and fight through the streets of Benghazi to rescue their fellow Americans.

Amen flc. I will point to Forrest Gump...a movie that convinced stupid americans that it was a hero movie...when in truth it was a guy too ignorant / too retarded to understand, and yet was somehow deemed a hero.

Hero's look death in the eye and are willing to sacrifice more, personally, than they are willing to save for you. It is an UN-equal proposition for the hero.

Not to discredit troops in any way at all, but you can be a hero without doing what to many is unthinkable, flc… you don't have to throw yourself onto a grenade to be a hero. To get a purple heart? Sure, maybe something pretty drastic. Hero isn't purple heart. It's broader than that. Don't take away from what this guy did. He was this girl's idol and hours before she was going to die he comforted her. He could have - like most would - sat back and watched her die, but he didn't. Don't say he didn't do something heroic.

bo-sox....I agree with you. Honestly, not every soldier is automatically a hero. Some of them joined up for the college money, never expecting to go to combat. My brother has served twice in the Middle East...and both times there were kids that never expected to end up there...that isn't what they signed up for, and they resented...you know...living without AC and internet access 24/7, etc....Those whiners are NOT heroes, even though they wear the uniform of some heroes.

I think we should reserve the word “hero” for someone who risks their life for someone else or for a higher cause. This includes firemen, policemen, and just the innocent citizen that saves someone.

Certainly what this college football player did was extraordinary, but he did not risk his life. Last year, almost every week of the NFL season, we heard a different story about Tim Tebow doing something to make someone’s life better. We should hold these acts of kindness on a higher level, but they are not heroic. I just wish more athletes, movie stars, and public figures would act more like Tim Tebow and this young Notre Dame player.

Fireman and Policeman....bahhh. Most cops don't join to risk their lives....they join so they can bully people.

Interesting study...facial hair....study why people grow it, what it means psychologically...and then look at how many cops have mustaches...

Cops and firemen are not heroes automatically just because they own the badge. That as bad as saying an army guy that gets shipped overseas to catch a bullet he didn't expect or a road side bomb is a hero just becuase he was the victim of circumstances.

You are not a hero because you are in the military, or become a fireman or policeman. It is the act of heroism that identifies "Heroes".

Firemen who actually go into burning buildings and save lives even when they know the building is about to collapse are heroes. Every FDNY, NYPD, and Port Authority officer who lost their lives getting.people.out of the WTC is a hero. But I agree most cops aren't. It's the actions that amke a hero.

And sorry, but the athlete in question is a classy good and upright person, but he risked nothing so the act elevates him to right and honorable, but not hero.

Changing a life is pretty heroic if you ask me. It's not just anyone that can do it. Nobody ever said that saving a life isn't heroic, just that changing one is…

I think many cops are heroes. Of course, the one that pulls people over in front of my school for going 26 instead of 25 is a real bitch (and he's so damn fat that you could jog backwards and outrun him), but many cops are heroes. It's not the action that makes you a hero in that regard, but the willingness to make it happen if necessary. I wouldn't do what they do.

Krellin: "Interesting study...facial hair....study why people grow it, what it means psychologically...and then look at how many cops have mustaches..."

Link?

flc64: "I think we should reserve the word “hero” for someone who risks their life for someone else or for a higher cause."

And I think we should reserve the word "hero" for demigods.

bo: "It's not the action that makes you a hero in that regard, but the willingness to make it happen if necessary. I wouldn't do what they do."

Being willing to do something without ever actually doing it (whether because you're not actually willing or because you never have opportunity) means you have a certain attribute? I'm sorry, but this just doesn't hold up. From the time of the Greeks until now, the general Western psyche holds that "actions speak louder than words" and "by one's virtue, they become a god [a hero]" (a god in Ancient Greece, a hero in modern America). Have you ever played Diplomacy? Do you really think someone willing to two-draw is your good ally or do they actually have to two-draw with you?


The biggest issue facing the word "hero" is that it is being watered down. Like awesome. Things are no longer so filled with awe that they are awesome; they're just cool. We really should preserve our words more carefully or they'll have no meaning left.

Heroics require risk. There was no risk so it was not heroic.

So we should hide behind the people that make sacrifices that are more relatable to us rather than sacrifices that we don't see? Te'o dealt with his girlfriend and grandmother each dying from different cancers recently. If my girlfriend died, I'd probably never get up again, let alone my grandmother on top of that. They are special people to me and they were special to Te'o too. He could have laid down and called it quits and ignored the fact that there were others that needed him but he didn't.

Dub, you are paradoxical in that statement.. actions speak louder than words, but how are words not actions? Would you dare tell me that speaking out against something that is wrong - or speaking for something that's right - isn't heroic? Te'o spoke out for a little girl that would have otherwise been forgotten. There's no preservation of words. They are spoken, powerfully or not.

You don't have to visibly be a hero to be one. That's my whole point. There are things you say or things you think that make you incredible in that way. I'm not the "we're all heroes to someone" type, but I'm not the "fuck no you aren't a hero, you've not done shit" type either. There's middle ground there...

Bo_sox - Someday you will understand that you are watering down the word by using it to lightly. Yes there is a grey area between hero and bum. There is a lot of grey and it has ranges from common everyday person to noble and just and strong of spirit. At the very top end is hero and it is reserved for those who willingly put their life on the line for others or who perform actions either at great personal risk or despite great obstacles. Had he personally been fighting cancer and went out and stood up for others like Christopher Reeves did for paraplegics after his accident, then he would be a hero.

"Had he personally been fighting cancer and went out and stood up for others like Christopher Reeves did for paraplegics after his accident, then he would be a hero."

Okay, how about Christian Bale? An invisible hero, I might say, fighting for the Chinese activist Chen Guangchang. Bale isn't Chinese, but he tried to get him help when he was under house arrest. The government wouldn't let him. Bale went to see victims of the Aurora shooting earlier this year too, that one being without a film crew. So, by your argument, because Bale isn't a Chinese activist, he's not a hero? Because he wasn't one of the victims, he's not a hero? Why do you have to be in the same category of those you are advocating for to be successful in doing so?

Being an activist doesn't make one a hero.

It takes risk or sacrifice. If Christian Bale give everything he made from all 3 Batman films to the cause, *then* I would call him a hero.

"Athletes are not real heroes. Real heroes jump on live grenades to save their buddies. Real heroes volunteer for impossible missions. Real heroes disobey orders from higher headquarters and fight through the streets of Benghazi to rescue their fellow Americans. "

From the mouth of one of the heroes you are talking about and I privilege of meeting that is simply not so. Real heroes are ordinary people who are afraid selfish vulnerable etc. that rise above it to do great things and help others. Athletes can certainly be heroes. Under your criteria half the medal of honor winners who were simply fighting to survive and help their buddies survive wouldn't qualify.

Still waiting on that link, krelly.

Krellin, link. Please.