For a lot of people, myself included from time to time, we look at sports figures as heroes. For me, that typically involves a high-profile athlete doing something good for another human being. It very rarely ever is the result of an endeavor on the field or court.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the greatest hero I’ve ever had in my life was a very tall man who looked every bit like a basketball player, but in reality possessed exactly zero athletic bones in his body. It should also come as no surprise that on the eve of Father’s Day, the man who was – and is to this day – the greatest hero I ever encountered, was Rob Phillips, my dad.
What Dad lacked in athletic prowess he more than made up for with his intellect, his wit, his unrelenting desire to talk more about you than himself, and the hundreds if not thousands of small acts of kindness he perpetrated on friends, family and strangers that he never spoke of or sought attention for. Like the college student who needed an extra hour or two with Professor Phillips to understand how to write a good lead paragraph. Or the inmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary named Mick, serving a life sentence, who found a reason to go on living when Dad took him under his wing during a class he taught at the prison every week. Or the year he literally adopted his widowed sister-in-law and her four young children when his own brother was tragically killed in a car accident on the other side of the country.
But perhaps the most memorable act of heroism he provided to me personally happened when I was a kid, and began with an epic gaffe on his part involving a god-like, nationally known athlete. Here’s how it went:
I was 9 years-old and the god-like figure was the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. Forget the fact that I lived in Oregon, I was obsessed with the Packers, and Bart Starr was the Super Bowl winning quarterback of my favorite team. I absolutely idolized him. He. Was. God.
Dad went on a business trip to Washington, D.C. that fall and, as luck would have it, happened to be staying in the same hotel the Packers were staying in for a big game that weekend against the Redskins. I think it was the D.C. Hilton. Knowing how much I sweated the Packers and idolized Bart Starr, he made it his mission to try and get an autograph. One evening as he was leaving the hotel, the team was coming into the lobby. He saw his chance. He asked a bellman which one Bart Starr was and, having been given the 411 by someone who knew a lot more about football than he did, confidently strode up to Starr as he was entering an elevator. It was then that Dad committed the most unpardonable sin I could have ever imagined.
He stuck out his hand and said, “Johnny Unitas, right? My son would love your autograph!”
Unitas, of course, was the name of the other Hall of Fame quarterback playing during that era, but most decidedly not a Packer. And certainly not #15 -- Bart Starr -- aka God. An epic, incalculable brain fart by Dad.
Starr looked at him, smiled, and said “Sorry mister, wrong guy!” as the doors closed between them.
As soon as the encounter ended, Dad knew what he had done. Mistake number one. Mistake number two came a couple of days later when he told me what had happened. I was mortified, embarrassed, and filled with anger. “How could you have been SO DUMB, Dad!!!!???”
I ultimately forgave him. He was not a sports guy, after all. Easy mistake to make. I guess. Not really, but whatever. We went on with our lives, he and I. But I did harbor a tiny bit of smoldering resentment that only a 9 year-old can have for one of his parents.
Several months later, to correct some problems in my feet that I struggled with for years, I underwent a very painful surgery on both of my Achilles tendons at the same time. I spent several days in the hospital and it was, to put it bluntly, agonizingly painful. No kid should have to endure that kind of pain.
One evening as I was in the room by myself, listening to the quiet pad pad pad of a nurse’s shoes in the dim hallway outside my room, a tall figure quietly entered and said, “How you doin’ Skipper?” Dad was a Navy guy, and used to throw nautical terms around with us kids. Skipper was a nickname he bestowed on me.
I told him how much I hurt, and he came to the side of the bed and said he had something that might make me feel better. He put a box on my bed and opened it for me.
Inside was an autographed photo of Bart Starr and a Packer’s tee-shirt with the #15 on it.
Little did I know that he was as tormented as I was that he missed his chance with Starr in that hotel lobby several months earlier. So he wrote the team, told him what had happened, said his kid was in the hospital, and was there any way they could help him look like a hero and make his kid feel a little better.
For a few minutes that pain I was feeling went away. I put my thumb on Starr’s autograph and smudged it just a little to make sure it was real. Yep, real. I put the T-shirt on.
My dad became a hero that night, right there and then, in that darkened hospital room trying to make up for a mistake and in the process, make his son feel a little better. I still get a little misty thinking about it today.
You can score 50 points in a game. You can make a 20-foot putt to win the U.S. Open. You can score the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. You can do all of those things and be called a hero.
I’ll choose being a great father over any of that stuff every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
So, this Sunday on Father’s Day I wish for everyone to remember who the real heroes are in life. I know I will. RIP Rob Phillips. You were always – and still are to this day -- my hero.
I love you.
Skipper