HEROES : Even With Good Guys Turning Bad , Plenty of Heroes Left

We may not need another hero, considering the actions of contemporary headliners.

Sports has become entangled in a web of corruption, from drug abuse to gambling to illegal payments for college athletes. Even reports of salary disputes have added to the tainting of reputations.

But then again, perhaps we always will need heroes.

The times may have changed, but youths’ attraction to sports, music and film stars has not.

In these complicated times of good guys turning out to be bad, or at least not so squeaky clean, who do the youth of today look up to?

We take you to the locker rooms of Orange County high school football teams. There, they like heroes with an action-tinged pathos. Men with guts. Men who do not eat quiche. Men who single-handedly take on an army--and win. Men who exude an aggressive, winning attitude. The kind of men who have been glorified for a thousand years.

In explaining the macho ethic, Brea-Olinda High School’s Kelly Porterfield said, “My sports hero is probably Dick Butkus. I play linebacker and he played with a lot of intensity and he was pretty awesome. He was a hitter. In watching him, it seems that if I wanted to play, I should play like him.

“I try to pattern my play after him. We’ve seen films of him and one of them was called ‘Search and Destroy,’ and yeah, now I really try to play like him and hit hard.”

Said Mater Dei fullback Charles Anton, who wears No. 44: “I’m wearing John Riggins’ number because my coach wants me to be like him, except for his partying habits.”

Mike Rosellini, Estancia quarterback, wears No. 13 like Miami’s Dan Marino. Brea-Olinda’s Tom Herrington wears No. 56 like the New York Giants’ Lawrence Taylor. And Steve Gulley, Westminster quarterback, wears No. 12, like Terry Bradshaw, former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback. Yeah, the times really haven’t changed much when it comes to idolization.

In football, the Raiders’ Lyle Alzado illustrates this lust for machismo .

Gregg Bratcher at Orange Lutheran said that he liked Alzado because he “played like an animal.”

Said teammate Jon Hadley, “Alzado’s great because I like his style. When he talks, everybody listens.”

Said Chris Hartman, Pacifica tight end: “I like Lyle Alzado because he plays hard. He doesn’t mind if he has to cheat or not. He does whatever he has to do to get the job done.”

Alzado may have caught the fancy of prep football players, but today’s youth are not deceived into thinking that he, or any of his kind, are demigods. Their idolization stops when the heroes’ actions are inconsistent with their values.

“Athletes should understand that they live in a fishbowl,” said Rick Costello, Mission Viejo class valedictorian and center on the football team. “They have a public responsibility and a public image to maintain. It’s very frustrating to know that we work extremely hard for the love of the sport and then watch someone squabble for $900,000 when he’s being offered $800,000.

“Look at Tony Dorsett. Here’s a guy who has been swindled and conned out of all of his earnings and he has to hold out in order to pay a debt to the IRS. That’s kind of sad.”

Asked whether the drug and money scandals have hurt the athletes’ image, Steve Palczewski, a junior tackle at Pacifica, said: “No, because I don’t consider them gods. They’re normal human beings and everyone has faults.

“If I expected them to be perfect, I’d say, ‘How could this happen?’ But they’re human like everybody else. You talk about all these people being involved in drugs and then you see Pete Rose setting the record for hits and you know that if he’d been into drugs, he’d never be able to do that. So, there are still those athletes you think of that way.”

Among other favored athletes are Carl Lewis, Nolan Ryan, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and professional wrestlers Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.

“I heard that Andre the Giant once drank 127 beers and passed out,” said Hadley, the Orange Lutheran lineman.

Off the field, whomever is most capable of reflecting back the angst of youth, particularly rock stars, are most idolized.

Not all of the rock stars, however, portrayed a nihilistic viewpoint. Several Estancia players went to one of Bruce Springsteen’s Coliseum performances, but they admitted they went more because it was a media event than because they are big fans.

Estancia’s Rosellini said he was pleasantly surprised by Springsteen’s messages of social responsibility and promotion of food drives.

Generally, heavy metal groups such as the Scorpions, Ratt, Quiet Riot and Van Halen, particularly David Lee Roth, the group’s former lead singer, are the rage among teens.

Said Lmanyeo Scott, 17-year old quarterback at Orange Lutheran, “David Lee Roth is just like us except that he has money and he doesn’t have parents around telling him what to do.”

Similarly, men of independence and action abounded in the players’ choice of movie and video stars. A nebbish such as Pee Wee Herman or an androgynous sort such as rock star Prince didn’t court much favor.

From the big screen comes the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Sylvester Stallone-as-Rambo.

Said Pacifica’s Palczewski: “I’m kind of a war buff. I wouldn’t mind being like Rambo. I think there are MIA’s and they should send someone in to find them.”

The other most-often mentioned movie star was Clint Eastwood, an actor best known among teens for his roles as Dirty Harry, the hard-talking, fast-shooting cop.

Said Gary Llewellyn, a Westminster lineman, “Eastwood does things straight. He doesn’t put up with anything.”

Although the teen-agers prefer action figures when it comes to movie and rock stars, almost to a player those interviewed in an informal survey cited members of their families--usually parents--as being the single strongest influence in their lives.

Illustrating the point was Brea’s Porterfield. Family and country were most important to him.

“I think my parents (Richard and Judy) are heroes to me,” he said. “They make us (in the family) pretty happy.

“And John Wayne, because he represents America. He seems like one of the studs. He’s plain, but he was a stud. We have six kids in our family and my older brothers tell me about these people and took me to see John Wayne movies.”

Mike Motherway of Mater Dei said, “My father is more nervous than I am on game day. He’s been very influential in my life. He usually leaves work at noon on game day so he can get ready for a game. And my mom wears my letterman’s jacket to every game.”

Clearly, today’s media-conscious preps are influenced by what they see; they use public and private figures as role models, but just as clearly, most are capable of deciding for themselves which heroes are useful and which are not.

Summing up his opinion of the problems of pro athletes, Mater Dei’s Mike Kelly said, “Salaries are too large and I think the big money is leading to the drug problems. I just wrote an essay in my English class on this very subject.”

It seems that the kids are all right. Rather, it’s the heroes we have to worry about.