Happy Friday, everyone.
A couple of weeks ago, my childhood hero died.
The concept of a “childhood hero” is important to educators. What makes someone a hero? Where does a child find heroes? How does a child choose a hero? Why are heroes so important to children, and what sort of impact can they have?
I want to explore those questions indirectly, by telling you about my hero. He’s a man I never met, born 57 years before me—but he helped raise me and continues to help raise me today, even after he’s gone.
I was an active boy, a child who felt most in his element when playing a team sport. I loved the combination of individual glory and team unity that is required to succeed. At first, I was driven to master physical challenges. But over time the challenge became more mental. Could we out-strategize our opponents? Did I have the discipline to practice as much as it takes to improve and be consistently excellent? How could I bounce back after being disappointed in a loss? I didn’t know when I began playing sports that they’d teach me so much about myself, and in many ways, so much about the world.
When I wasn’t playing, I loved watching. I tuned in to see if my favorite team would win. To see the athletes, the physical feats, the strategy. But I actually had a hard time with sports heroes. As I grew, I realized that many of athletic heroes couldn’t live up to the standard of being moral or intellectual ones. I heard stories of athletes cheating, getting arrested, getting into fights. I remember being personally heartbroken when one hero of mine didn’t even look up to say hi to me when I had waited in line for an hour to get his autograph. He seemed indifferent and uncaring.
The man who this note is about, who became one of my most enduring childhood heroes, wasn’t even an athlete. He wasn’t particularly strong or handsome and, in fact, I didn’t see him much. I didn’t even consciously choose him to be my hero—it happened gradually, without me noticing.
I grew up watching the Los Angeles Dodgers and followed them as closely as I could. Back then, they didn’t televise every game, so I would take the weekly TV guide and find when Dodger games were on and plan my free time around them. I wanted to know everything I could about the game, the statistics, the history, the players. I wanted to marvel in the success of my favorite team.
The players had their ups and downs, and so did the team, but there was a consistent, warming factor that persisted each time I experienced a game: the voice of the announcer, Vin Scully.
Vin Scully was and is widely regarded as the best baseball commentator of all time, and for good reason. He became the Dodger’s announcer in his early 20s (something unheard of these days!) and continued with the team through decades until he retired—67 years later. He was with the team throughout it all: When they signed Jackie Robinson, the first African American player in Major League Baseball. When they moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. When they won 6 different World Series through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. When I began following them in the early 90s. When they played excellent baseball. All the way until 2016, when he retired.
He was a part of all of that. He had stories. He had memories narrated flawlessly, intertwining funny tidbits while simultaneously keeping the viewers up to date with the play on the field. He had a deep lexicon and found the right words at the right times. He coined catchphrases that have become a part of day-to-day life even for people who have never seen a Dodger game. I could go on, but suffice it to say, he was tremendous, a true master of his craft.
But more than that, through his stories and the way he carried himself, you got a glimpse into his character, his integrity, his respect for fellow humans. He made me feel important as one of millions of listeners that he never met. I felt at ease and understood by the way he gave just the right amount of detail, respecting my knowledge while building it with new info. He was reliable, humble when he made a small mistake, and, in just about all ways I could see, he was a perfect example of a man.
As a kid, I never wanted to be an announcer—I wanted to be on the field being spoken about! But over time I realized that as players came and went, Vin Scully was a steadfast fixture and an honest, good, reliable man. Without trying to be and without having a single heroic feat of his own—all his best moments were about celebrating an athlete’s best moment!—he earned my utmost respect and admiration.
Eventually, I became curious to learn more about him. When I began to research him, deep down I might have been a little scared. Would I find out something about him that would let me down? But I didn’t. The more you learn about him, the easier it is to honor him. He was honest. He had two loving, faithful marriages, the second after his first wife died. He was an excellent father. He was, by all accounts, just generally a good guy.
He was my hero for being all of that. For being a master of his craft, a very successful professional, and a down-to-earth complete human being with character in all the little and big things. For a while, I did even flirt with the dream of being an announcer myself, only because I wanted to be like him, but I realized it wasn’t the specific craft that mattered, but the character. I really wanted to be a person like he was and that was why he was my hero.
This kind of influence is similar to that of an educator. We can, occasionally, be a student’s hero. But even when we aren’t, we have a profound impact, not through being flashy or having huge moments, but by being a complete person every day. By acting respectfully, honestly, courageously. By working hard and pursuing growth and excellence. By smiling and caring about the other people in your life. By persistently mastering one’s craft.
Vin Scully was classy, and I aspire to live the kind of life where others can benefit from my class and character like I did from him. And as an educator and a father, I have the opportunity to not only teach the children in my life explicitly, but, even more importantly, to live a life worthy of being emulated. To be an everyday, classy hero myself.
Joel Mendes
Love the post! Thank you Joel.
Great tribute to an amazing man.