Where are the Heroes?

This past Saturday night I watched the NBA All-Star weekend events from New Orleans, Louisiana. NBA All-Star weekend is filled with great events that ends with the worst basketball game of the year where there is absolutely no defense played whatsoever. I could care less about the game but I do like watching the three point shootout and especially the slam dunk contest. I will admit that in recent years the slam dunk contest has become just a repeat of the year before and I had somewhat lost interest. But this one was unbelievable. Dwight Howard is the 6'11" 265 pound power foward of the Orlando Magic. This guy put on a show. At 6'11" he's already closer to the rim than most people but his jumping ability puts him in another deminision. His dunks were creative and spectacular. Definitely worth a search of the video if you missed it on Saturday night.

No doubt millions of young boys were watching the events of the weekend and now millions will try to imitate his dunks on their 6 foot goals in the backyard. All of them will want to be Dwight Howard just like my generation wanted to be Dr. J 25 years ago.

Athletes have become the heroes of our day. We have made them such by the ridiculous salaries we pay them to play games. Jason Kidd has been rumored to be coming to the Dallas Mavericks in a trade. Jason Kidd makes $19 million a year and is scheduled to make $21 million next year. Jason Kidd's salary this year would fund the entire budget of my church for over 5 years! That includes all of the expenses we incure including supporting missionaries, paying the salaries of over 100 people, building costs, ministry budgets, helping people in need and dozens of other things. Don't get me wrong I'm all for Jason Kidd making however much money he can. If that is what he can demand for his services, more power to him. That is the power of Capitalism in action.

But the thing that bothers me is that we have created a culture in which our young people look to these high paid athletes to find their heroes. Most athletes make pretty good role models. For every athlete that gets arrested for bad conduct there are a dozen who give of themselves to help people in the community and present themselves in a honorble way. But we need to point our kids to the real heroes. Men like Justin Monschke who lost his life fighting for his country in Iraq in October 2007. Or men like Shane Kizer, a Denton Police officer pictured in the Denton Record Chronicle comforting a young boy whose father had kidnapped him and brought him to Denton.

These men and women are the real heroes our young people need to want to be like. They don't make millions of dollars like the athletes, they don't play in front of millions of fans and get mobbed every time they go out in public. Instead they make our world a safer and better place to live in. Let's point out kids to the real heroes of our day!