Tillman’s Death Fuels Anger at Wrong People

I came here to write about the Kentucky Derby, getting up before dawn to watch a bunch of horses exercise in preparation for the big race, which is about as meaningful and telling as watching Shaq shoot free throws at practice to get ready for a playoff game.

I can tell you in one sentence what I learned from a full day at Churchill Downs: “No one knows who is going to win Saturday’s race, so it really makes no sense to arrive here at dawn and ask anybody what they think.”

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I HAVE to admit, though, I’ve been somewhat distracted the last few days. As a reader and sportswriter, I’ve been following the sports world’s follow-up to Pat Tillman’s death, surprised and disappointed at the seemingly universal off-target reaction to his passing.

It began last week with “Hacksaw” Hamilton from XTRA Sports suggesting that Tillman’s death was a staggering blow for today’s professional athletes, who never made the sacrifice and paid the price that Tillman paid.

Shame on them, we were told, with the implication, I guess, that athletes everywhere should have stopped playing and enlisted in the armed forces.

And then the e-mails began to arrive:

Liberty Bertolino: “I find it ironic that Eli Manning and Pat Tillman were in the headlines in the same week.... The irony is that one day after Tillman, a true hero in every sense of the word, sacrificed his life, Eli Manning proclaims he will not play for the Chargers. Here is a young man with yet-to-be-determined ability to play pro football while Pat Tillman sacrificed everything and asked for nothing.... Tillman is a hero, and Manning is a coward. His father, Archie, should be ashamed.”

Lynn McGinnis: “I am a sports fan, but I don’t watch NFL football. You don’t have to look any further than [the] draft.... Pat Tillman’s heroic sacrifice was juxtaposed to a dour, petulant, pouting Eli Manning. Tillman is what the NFL wishes it was and Manning is what it is. I have never been to Afghanistan, but I know Sunday afternoon in the NFL is not Afghanistan. Eli will not make it.”

There was also a Viewpoint letter Saturday from Mer Valdez: “As I read about Pat Tillman’s death Friday morning, there is one thought that keeps entering my mind: How can Eli Manning even look at himself in the mirror?”

The Internet, of course, affords a look at the work of others, and most sportswriters around the country took the same bashing tack in trying to link Tillman’s death to all that is wrong in sports.

One sportswriter, Newsday’s Chuck Culpepper, chose to tell people about the man who had died, extolling Tillman’s individuality and thereby offering an explanation for the extraordinary decision that had put him in harm’s way.

“So, in addition to the fear of death,” Culpepper began, “the fear of pain, the fear of extreme discomfort, the fear of insolvency, and the fear of the unfamiliar, Pat Tillman somehow found the wherewithal in a mere 27-year lifetime to vanquish a fear even more pertinent in the day-to-day puzzle: the fear of what others might think.

“He did so despite spending generous time in sports-team locker rooms, bastions of pack mentality and of stringent behavioral codes.

“It’s astounding.”

Culpepper went on to write about the man who answered his calling, pushing himself to do things that most people might not try, like regularly climbing the 200-foot light tower at Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium. “All hail to the eccentric,” Culpepper wrote, in offering people a compelling picture of someone some of us might have had trouble understanding at times -- didn’t use a cellphone, honeymooned in Bora-Bora, didn’t get a haircut in college -- but who had the “courage” to stick with his convictions.

It was a brilliant tribute, with Culpepper concluding: “As we can grasp much from his conquest of physical fear, we also can learn from the ‘eccentric,’ who always risks the chance of derision from the pack but in memory winds up sitting atop the light tower for good.”

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OBVIOUSLY, I have no problem criticizing professional athletes, and on occasion some might even consider that criticism heavy-handed. Hard to believe.

But we’ve gone too far when we have to use Tillman’s death to support criticism of Manning’s behavior, or another Gary Payton harangue.

Tillman stood on his two feet in making the decision he did when he made his military commitment, and chose not to use it in any other way, declining all opportunities for interviews or further public exposure.

It seems a little incongruous now, if not disrespectful, for anyone to use his death to fire off angry volleys at pro athletes, who regularly frustrate and irritate us.

It speaks to a deep-rooted anger and disregard some folks have for professional athletes, and the desire to “get to them” with the most stinging criticism imaginable in comparing their behavior with that of a fallen American hero.

It also borders on the ridiculous when these same people suggest, “this puts everything in perspective,” when clearly they have lost all perspective.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Carl H. Grossman:

“As the son of one Ranger and the father of another, who served on the same nine-man squad with Ranger Tillman, I can tell you firsthand about how these brave young men believe so strongly in what they do....

“I asked my son, Jeremy, yesterday what kind of man was Tillman? He paused for a moment and then said, very simply, “A great one, Dad.’ “‘

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.