The Real Heroes : It takes more than star power to be a teen’s idol. Today’s young people revere deeds, not flash; trust, not trends.

Jason Weaver sleeps with a magical football, which might seem somewhat odd for a 17-year-old high school senior.

It’s not, really. Weaver sleeps with the pigskin because it was given to him by a man he worships at a time when he needed inspiration.

The football was tossed to him by Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham, who couldn’t have possibly known the impact such an innocuous gesture would have on the slender young man.

Weaver had been having all kinds of trouble when he went to see his hero lead the Eagles against the Rams earlier this year. He’d hurt his shoulder and been forced to give up football and baseball at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster. He was having problems at home and was even contemplating dropping out of school.

“Everything wasn’t going well, with my parents, girlfriend, friends, everything,” Weaver said. “I went to this game, and just seeing him out there gave me so much more life. I was out there watching the practice, and they were coming in off the field, and I said, ‘Hi, Randall. Good luck. I hope you win and everything.’ And he looked straight over to me and said, ‘Hi.’

“I couldn’t believe it! I was on such a high! After they won, I went down there and he was one of the last guys coming off the field, ‘cause he was mobbed by the press, and I said, ‘Great game, Randall!’ And he looked up at me and threw me the ball. So after that, I sleep with that ball. I wake up every morning and look at that ball, and it gives me the strength to get through the day.”

Each year, the World Almanac releases a list of people idolized by today’s teen-agers. In the past few years, the top names have come from the worlds of sports and entertainment: Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Mary Lou Retton, Sylvester Stallone.

This year, 5,000 high school students were polled, and singer Paula Abdul nabbed first place on the Almanac’s 1991 “Heroes of Young America” list. Mom came in second. Neither result is surprising; those who have queried teen-agers on the subject find that they admire icons of popular culture as well as their families.

For the past 30 years, Paul Cummins, headmaster of Santa Monica’s Crossroads School, has asked students to write papers on their heroes. His current crop of students admire “rock stars and movie stars--media-generated synthetic heroes--but on their lists were a lot of their teachers, and a lot of people listed ‘Mom, Dad, my older sister and other family members.’ I think they are looking for heroes in their private relationships, too.”

Cummins and others who study social history agree that a hero used to be a more easily agreed-upon entity: an astronaut, a president, a self-made person. We projected our values and aspirations onto our heroes. The less we really knew about them, the easier it was.

It’s not so simple anymore. The barriers that once prevented reporters from writing about the dalliances of public figures are gone. And there have been such grand-scale disappointments: Pete Rose in jail, Martin Luther King Jr. reportedly cheated on his wife, Ronald Reagan tried to trade arms for hostages.

Nonetheless, when asked, teen-agers can readily name the people they admire. In recent conversations with seniors at five Los Angeles county high schools about their heroes, Abdul’s name never came up. (Mom’s did.) The students were somewhat star-struck, but generally their answers were thoughtful and well-reasoned.

Sure, the students spoke of rock stars and athletes. But despite the fact that they are bombarded by images of Michael Jordan selling shoes and Madonna flaunting herself on screens both big and small, these names didn’t spark much response at all.

Instead, the heroes they chose were highly individualized--from Lucille Ball to Spike Lee; from people who protected Jews in World War II to their high school administrators. Many admire musical figures they associate with the ‘60s--Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. Many chose their parents or grandparents. Some say with confidence (and it should come as no surprise to those of us who were sentient through the self-involved ‘80s) that you can be your own hero.

What’s more, when teen-agers do name heroes, they are frequently willing to accept them warts and all. Pete Rose? He may have fouled out on his tax returns, they say, but that’s no reflection on his performance on the field.

In general, young women named women: Olympic gold-medalist Florence Griffith Joyner and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Black students chose blacks: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Walter Payton and Prince. Aida Cardenas at Culver High admires the television newswoman Linda Alvarez. Sam Ou at Crossroads spoke highly of the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. (Heroes did cross race and gender lines. For instance, some white students chose King as a hero and some girls named men.)

“As recently as this month,” said Cummins, “I have asked my own senior English class to give me a list of their heroes, and it is completely idiosyncratic.”

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, he said, students were far more apt to name political figures and revolutionaries as their heroes: the Kennedys, King, Eldridge Cleaver, campus free-speech advocate Mario Savio and Malcolm X. Now, Cummins said, students look to movies, music and television.

Kim Harrell, a delicate, raspy-voiced senior at Bonita High School in La Verne, reveres the late Lucille Ball because she aspires to a career in entertainment and she empathizes with Ball’s fictitious Lucy Ricardo.

“Comedy is the best thing in life,” said Harrell. “I love to laugh. It’s my favorite thing, so of course my favorite person would be someone who makes me laugh. I used to stay home sick when I was little just so I could watch ‘I Love Lucy.’ My mom knew I wasn’t sick, but she believes in giving kids breaks.

“When Lucy died, I just cried. The things with Ricky! She just thinks of things that are so funny! Oh my gosh, she almost pulls them off and she always gets caught, and that’s the story of my life!”

Some teen-agers rejected the notion of a single person embodying all that is heroic. “What you can trust in becomes your hero,” said Taft Green of Crossroads.

“In the ‘70s there was a wave of divorcing,” said Green. “My family went through that. Everyone got divorced and the children looked to Superman for strength. Now as I become older, my heroes are more and more personal--teachers, even my father has become almost a hero to me because he’s what I can trust. Trust is basically what defines a hero.”

Helen Park, of Rosemead High, also found her hero close to home. She says her late grandfather, Park Yoon Sun, is the person she admires most.

“My grandfather spent his whole life doing what he thought was right. He wrote one book of commentary on each book of the Bible. He strove through the persecution of the Japanese when he was in Korea and just basically kept our family unit alive. I didn’t get to know him that well, but I know he cared for me deeply.”

Enshrining a parent, said Bill Moore, chairman of the department of education at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., is wholly expectable.

“My father was a man of 5 feet, 6 inches,” said Moore, “but I saw him as being 10 feet tall. Not only do I think of him as being a man of sterling qualities, but of equal importance, I knew that he accepted me totally and that I was the most important person in his life.”

That, too, he said, is why Jason Weaver draws such inspiration from Randall Cunningham’s gesture. “By locking eyes and tossing the football, he was singled out from the entire crowd as being important,” said Moore. “He now perceives himself as valued by the most important person, and therefore he can weather all the other storms.”

Precisely because she makes them feel important, several students at Culver High said their new principal, Laura Plasse, is their hero. Roger Endo, for instance, this year’s commissioner of student affairs on the student council, had defined a hero as “someone who could save me from my problems, someone to guide me through the hard times.”

Plasse, he said, fit the bill.

“She really saved the school,” said Endo. “Last year, my junior year, the school was a mess. No one wanted to come back the next year. Mrs. Plasse came to the school and she’s just amazing. She’s taken charge, she knows what’s up. Now there’s school spirit and she’s really involved with the students. Last year, I couldn’t talk directly with the principal. Now it’s almost as though we’re on a first-name basis. She’s really open minded. She wrote me a note the other day and signed it ‘Laura.’ It was really neat!” (Plasse was astonished when told what Endo said. She laughed and swore she hadn’t paid him to say it.)

A list of the people high schoolers despise is just as enlightening as a list of those they admire. Offer up a few names that might once have generated enthusiasm and they fairly snort in disgust.

Chuck Yeager? “When Dick Ruttan and the Voyager went around the world, Yeager was quite a jerk, saying, ‘Oh, that’s not a record. What I did was a record,’ ” said Dan Dinsmore of Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, very near where Yeager burnished his reputation as a daredevil test pilot.

Politicians? “You don’t think of them as people who have the highest moral values,” said Brian Brinegar of Bonita High School in La Verne.

“Up until the Watergate scandal, people liked their Presidents and looked up to their Presidents as good people,” said John Wyatt of Santa Monica’s Crossroads School. “And ever since then, people have been mistrustful.”

Donald Trump? “He’s like a politician without the title,” said Ryan Lollis of Antelope Valley High.

“The thing is, he made money by exploiting people, greedy exploitation,” said Jessica Ruvinsky of Crossroads.

And Madonna? Only one of 31 students interviewed had anything unqualifiedly positive to say about Madonna.

“I appreciate her and she has a fabulous sense of humor,” said Shelayna Kennedy of Crossroads. “When a woman is in control of her sexuality, I think that’s a good thing.”

“She’s a tramp,” said two students at Rosemead High.

“The hero is not what it was,” said Dinsmore, who nevertheless named pitcher Nolan Ryan as the person he admires most. “Society as a whole has matured. Back in the ‘50s, Superman would be considered a hero. If someone said Superman was their hero right now, they’d be laughed at. In the ‘50s, everything was hush hush. Now society is more open. Journalists are more open. I’m sure in the old days politicians had things to hide, but now everything comes out. It’s hard to have a hero that’s so clean and pristine, no one can touch them. But I think it’s better because now we know what’s true and what’s not true.”

While the teen-agers can be harshly judgmental about those they dislike, they also display remarkable tolerance for the frailties of super-achievers. One theme they sound over and over again is that even a hero is a human being. They can still find a place in their hearts for Pete Rose, who is serving time in prison for filing false income tax returns. After all, they say, he is only human. And former Dodger/Padre Steve Garvey? Well, at least he admitted his mistakes.

“Not everyone is perfect and you can’t expect them to be,” said Eric Shabsis of Culver High. “A good hero can get up and admit their mistakes.”

At Rosemead High School, Pete Rose’s name ignited a lively discussion.

Clint Kerr, a strapping baseball player, had defined a hero as someone “who sets examples and knows right from wrong,” yet he strongly defended Rose.

“He should be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” said Kerr, who owns a bat once owned by Rose.

“I mean, look at him,” said Valeria Bialon, with contempt. “He was a legend and he got kicked out.”

“I think he still is a hero,” said Jesus Huerta. “He’s a hero for what he did for baseball, for that head-first slide. If he’s a hero, it doesn’t matter what he did,” said Huerta.

“Yes, it does!” insisted Bialon.

“He disappointed a lot of people, but not me,” said Huerta. “To me, it doesn’t matter if he committed a crime. It’s hard for someone to be famous.”

“He’s a hero,” concluded Helen Park, “but he’s human.”