Why Do We Need Heroes?

What is a hero? A brave soldier? A caring father? A strong athlete? A brilliant scientist? Heroes can be famous. They can be from history They can live down the street teach us math or English. Whoever they are, they give us something to strive for, To help us meet our goals.

How Our Heroes Help Us

I interviewed Coach Hall and asked him to tell me about his hero. He said since he was a teen-ager, his hero has been Michael Jordan because he always worked harder than everyone else and was the best at what he did.

When I asked him how looking up to his hero had helped him, he smiled and told this story.

"When I was in college, I wanted to be on the basketball team, but I just wasn't good enough. I wasn't very tall, and I wasn't very fast. At first, I just thought I would give up basketball even though I loved it, but I thought of Jordan. I especially remembered the championship game when he had the flu and won the game almost single-handed.

"That was an inspiring moment for me, and for lots of other people, too, I'm sure. When I thought about how hard he had to work and how much determination he had to have to accomplish his goals, I was able to work harder."

I asked Coach Hall if he ended up being the star player like Michael Jordan. He laughed and said, "Not really. I did make the team, but I hardly ever got to play unless we were way far ahead. But I made a lot of great friends. I learned about self-discipline and working with a team. The most important thing was that I learned about basketball and now I have the greatest job in the world being the coach here at Susan B. Anthony Middle School."

Coach Hall's story shows that that we don't have to end up exactly like our heroes to learn something from them. Great men and women can always teach us something we can use in our daily life to be better and happier people.

Check back to this page every week to learn about how heroes have helped the students and staff at our school.

By Lucas