Real heroes might never get a headline
Long ago, my hometown in Colorado named a treatment center for troubled kids the Lyle Alzado Youth Home, after the powerful defensive lineman of the Denver Broncos.
Such acclaim came easily to Alzado based on what he presented as his biography.
He told of enduring abuse as a child, learning to suppress his ugly tendency to bully other kids and then working tirelessly to build up his body to become a star in the National Football League.
Alzado acted like an approachable tough guy with a big heart, and he was going places beyond the football field.
He boxed Muhammad Ali in an exhibition match, opened a restaurant that carried his name and took aim at an acting career.
A friend of mine named his first son Lyle in honor of Alzado, whose story seemed too good to be true. Some of it actually was true. But most of what he had said was the unreal account of a man too small and too weak to make it in pro football had he followed the old-fashioned regimen of diet and weight training.
In 1992, when Alzado knew he was dying, his worried face filled the cover of Sports Illustrated alongside a large headline that said: “I lied.” He admitted to “massive use of steroids and human growth hormone,” which, he claimed, had caused inoperable brain cancer.
Steroids had added 100 pounds of muscle to his body, turning him into a 300-pounder. Alzado also disclosed his ’roid rages, episodes when he chased after motorists in metro Denver, pulled them out of cars and beat them for some supposed traffic infraction against him.
I hadn’t thought of Alzado in years until the other day, when The New Mexican published a story about the arrest of a 29-year-old assistant boys basketball coach at Pecos High School named Dominick Baca.
Baca received extraordinary publicity last year about his good deed of taking in a male high school player whose grandfather had died.
Now the news coverage of Baca is about as negative as can be. State police have jailed him on suspicion of molesting two girls at the school. One is 14 years old.
Baca, regarded as a hero or role model only five months ago, faces damning charges.
He deserves the presumption of innocence from the court system. The rest of us can be rougher on ourselves.
We are guilty of turning people we don’t really know into artificial heroes.
None of the fans who held up Alzado as a role model for kids had any idea what he was really like.
His image was golden. His life was messy, filled with needles and injections that turned him into a monster, on the field and off. Celebrities seduce us all the time. A teacher I know of filled her classroom with photos of Oscar Pistorius, a sprinter with an incredible story that she shared with her students.
Born without bones to support his calves, Pistorius lost his lower legs to amputation as a small boy. In a million-to-one recovery and rise, he turned himself into a world-class “blade runner” who represented South Africa in the 2012 Olympic Games.
After the glory faded, Pistorius was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Other allegations about his abusive behavior surfaced when he landed in criminal court.
Holding up someone as a hero is risky if you don’t know him well.
Athletes and entertainers often receive this status because they are good at their job and better at public relations.
Dominick Baca’s story was more complicated. He was a young professional who once did something good for a teenager. He seemed like a dedicated coach, conscious of the difficult home lives that some kids have.
This brought Baca publicity he probably didn’t expect or even want, especially if he was trying to conceal crimes against teenage girls.
Now that Baca is a defendant in a criminal case, those who held him up as a role model are disappointed. Heroes are in short supply. That title is best reserved for people we can trust — those we know well but few others may know at all.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@ sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.