Life Extinguished, He Died a Real Hero

This is the best time ever for Shaquille O’Neal. He is playing fabulous basketball. He has become a wise and witty spokesman for his Lakers. He is funny and insightful, at the same time. The Lakers can’t seem to lose. Shaq is a happy hero.

But Shaq would also want us to meet his cousin, Lawrence Webb. Shaq loved Webb, Lawrence’s mother, Sarah Webb, said. Shaq understood, Sarah said, “that Lawrence is a real hero too.”

Lawrence Webb died at 37 Tuesday while fighting a fire.

Webb always wanted to be a fireman. His father, Willie, had been a Newark fire captain. When Lawrence was a tiny boy he would set little fires in the family bathroom so he could practice putting them out.

“We tried to tell Lawrence that wasn’t such a good idea,” Sarah said Thursday. “But I tell you this only to show you that Lawrence loved being a fireman very much.”

Shaq is the grandson of Sarah Webb’s brother. On Littleton Street in Newark, where Sarah and Willie reared four sons, Shaq wasn’t even the most famous athlete. Ray Dandridge, the accomplished Negro League baseball player who has been inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, also grew up on Littleton Street.

But as much as Shaq wanted to be a great basketball player and Dandridge turned into a great baseball player, Lawrence Webb only wanted to be a great firefighter. “Lawrence liked sports,” Sarah said, “but he wasn’t much interested in being an athlete. He really liked his cousin, though. He admired Shaq greatly.”

It is what we do, try to make heroes or goats out of sports figures. What we don’t do often enough is find the real heroes, the Lawrence Webbs.

Sarah had a smile when she spoke of her second-oldest son. She told of how Lawrence was always serious and was the one who told his brothers, his nieces and nephews, the kids on the block, how to behave well.

“He would counsel all the kids, even when he was just a boy himself, about what was right or wrong,” Sarah said. “When his father was at work, Lawrence would be the man of the house. If one of the children in the neighborhood had a problem, Lawrence would listen and would have advice. And Lawrence always gave good advice.”

Capt. Al Mauriello, Webb’s chief in Engine Co. 13, said Webb was one of the first people into the wood-frame residence after the fire call had come in. Luther Allen, Webb’s friend, who grew up on the same block, said it was a cliche but a true statement nonetheless when it was said of Webb: “Lawrence was always the first one into the burning building and the last one out.”

On Monday, the day before Webb died, Capt. Mauriello came to work to find one of the company’s trucks in the street, engines running, horns blaring. What, Mauriello wondered, was going on?

“Then what I see,” Mauriello said, “was Lawrence and his best friend, Noel Santiago [who was injured in the fire]. Lawrence and Noel were giving an impromptu class with a group of little preschoolers and their teachers.

“It turns out the kids had just been walking by and Lawrence smiled at them. Lawrence loved kids and he started talking to them about firefighting and pretty soon the rig was out and Lawrence was telling the kids about what to do in case of a fire and what the booster hose did. He was letting them try on the helmets and blow the air horn. Lawrence knew little kids loved the fire engines and he knew that when he had their attention, he could also give them a little lesson about fire safety.”

Allen said that Webb was always that way, willing to spend extra time with children, willing to be a role model in a way that had nothing to do with dunking a basketball or earning a million dollars. Webb was a regular guy with a regular job, which he took very seriously. He was a man in a neighborhood where too often the men weren’t around. Webb was.

After Sarah Webb reared her sons, including 34-year-old Bryan, who has recently become a Newark firefighter, she adopted eight other children. The oldest is now 17, the youngest is 12 and Sarah, who is retired after working for the Newark board of education, moved to North Carolina with her newest children.

“Lawrence is the one who comes down to North Carolina two or three times a year to make sure I’m OK and to be with the children and talk to them and listen to them,” Sarah said, speaking of her son as if he were still able to make that visit.

“Lawrence also worked really hard with his father, Willie, when Willie was very sick. It was Lawrence who would spend all his extra time helping his father.”

It was Mauriello, who had worked with Willie Webb 30 years ago, who had to call the father Tuesday and tell him the son was dead.

“That was one of the hardest things I have ever done,” Mauriello said, tears gathering in his eyes.

Initial reports were that Webb suffered a heart attack, though his mother says the autopsy report indicates that wasn’t the case. Whatever the reason, Webb died trying to put out a fire in a house where lives were endangered.

The funeral is Saturday. Flags around Newark are at half-staff on order of Mayor Sharpe James. What Shaq does against San Antonio this weekend will make much more news than what his cousin did Tuesday.

We tell you this story because Webb deserves as much of your praise and admiration as his cousin. Shaq, we think, would agree.

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.