Tony Romo changes tires, too

Tony Romo had been somewhat of an NFL opening-week quarterbacking exception, enjoying a great Sunday in Cleveland, except, of course, for that bloody chin thing.The weekend had also gone very well for Bill and Sharon White of Irving, who were returning late in the evening after an out-of-town trip.

The national news was about a day of QB disasters around the league, even at the elite level. Tom Brady, down and out for the season. Peyton Manning, looking feeble and lost. Carson Palmer, his once stellar reputation taking another plunge.

And for pure weirdness, there’s Vince Young, a young man in obvious need of either a good shrink or a good butt-kicking.

Meanwhile, even as devout football fans, the Whites had been on the road and out of touch with the NFL events. They particularly didn’t want to know the Dallas Cowboys’ outcome. The TiVo at home was waiting. Bill planned to watch the Cleveland game immediately, with suspense attached.

But a couple of miles from the house, while driving on MacArthur Boulevard, the Whites had their own mini-disaster. A tire blew on the Mercury.  Bill, luckily, managed to nurse his wounded ride off the street and into the lighted parking lot of a strip mall.

For troubling news on a Sunday, it didn’t rank up there with taking a direct hit to the chin from the helmet of linebacker Willie McGinest, but Bill became a bit woozy himself when he discovered his jack was malfunctioning. Never a good thing at midnight.

Plan B kicked in, however. One of those cigarette-lighter-plug-in air compressors was available. Except it was leaking more air than it was pumping.

“I don’t know, a hundred cars, probably more, had to go by. Nobody was stopping,” said Bill. “That’s just kind of the way it is in today’s world.”

And then …

“Bill was fooling with that tire, and I was standing beside the car watching him,” Sharon said. “The next thing I know, a nice-looking young man, very well-dressed, but with something strange on his chin, he walked up, smiled, and said, ‘Hey, you need some help?’ ”

Sharon hadn’t even noticed a car pull up.

So now it’s Bill and the well-dressed young man both bent over a flat tire at midnight on a Sunday, trying to figure out why a faulty air compressor plugged into the cigarette lighter was leaking more than pumping.

“I didn’t get a good look at him at that point,” Bill said. “We were both trying to get the tire pumped up.”

Sharon, however, took a second look. “You are Tony Romo,” she said. No reply, just a smile, and then it was back to work on the compressor.

Finally, they got the tire aired up. Enough, anyway, to make a slow drive home.

“I didn’t want to bother him,” Sharon said, “but I asked again, ‘You’re Tony Romo, right?’ ” I knew it was him by then. But he smiled and said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ”

Sharon: “I did something no 50-year-old woman should be doing, but I screamed real loud, and then jumped up and hugged him.”

Bill’s immediate response was “Don’t tell me how you guys did. I’m going home to watch it.”

By the next day, after seeing what the “something strange on his chin” was about, that made the Whites appreciate Romo’s gesture even more.

“He gets almost knocked cold in that game, and I read it took 13 stitches to close the cut, and then there’s a long flight home [the Cowboys charter arrived at around 11 p.m.] and Tony’s got to be dog tired, but he still was a good enough person to stop and help us,” Bill said.

“Look, we’re driving a 10-year old car that is sitting in a parking lot with a flat tire in the dead of night. He could tell by that we’re nothing special. But here’s a young man making millions of dollars, and he’s got all this fame and glory, and he does this?”

The Whites couldn’t thank Romo enough. “But if I ever had the opportunity, I’d also like to thank two other people. His mom and dad,” Bill said. “They obviously raised him right. We’ve got kids about his age. We know how difficult it can sometimes be in this day and age.”

(An e-mail from Sharon alerted me to Tony’s good deed. No Cowboys official knew about it even by Wednesday.)

Not that the Whites weren’t already Romo fans, but …

“After all this, what I realized is the athletic thing is Tony’s gift, yet it goes beyond that,” Bill said. “This was a good person we met. A good person with small-town values despite all the big-city fame and fortune.”

Shrug off a blow to the chin. Win a game. Help strangers fix a flat. It was a fine Sunday for the kid.

Sportsmanship on full display at the Olympics

As many parents will tell you teaching good sportsmanship to young athletes faces many challenges in this SportsCenter driven culture.  The attention give to selfish, and immature athletes such as Many Ramirez, Barry Bonds, Ron Artest, and Chris Henry fall far short of showcasing role model behavior.

This is in stark contrast to the refreshing scenes coming from the Beijing Olympics where sportsmanship can be readily seen from both the winners and those suffering “the agony of defeat.”

Amid great applause, Dara Torres demonstrated tremendous class when she asked an official to hold up her heat when Therese Alshammar needed to change out suits after a rip happened right before the 50m semifinal event.  Torres was very quick to congratulate Britta Steffen of Germany when Torres fell just short of gold by one hundredth of a second in the 50m Freestyle.

Dana Torres is 41 and should be mature enough to show sportsmanship, you say.  Then look at Shawn Johnson (age 16) and Nastia Liukin (age 18) openly cheering for each other when a strong performance from one would knock the other from gold medal status.

“I am really happy for her,” Liukin said of Johnson.

They are teammates you might argue and should cheer each other on.   Then also take note of Cheng Fei of China, along with the Chinese coaches, warmly congratulating Johnson and Liukin after their strong performances on the balance beam.

In track and field, Lolo Jones was in anguish after seeing her gold medal run evaporate when she clipped the second to last hurdle and finished seventh.  As she was explaining her mishap she stopped the interview to hug and congratulate silver medalist Sally Mclellan of Australia.

“Good job, sweetie,” was Jones’ message to Mclellan.

What other great examples of sportsmanship have you seen at this year’s Olympics?  Please tell us by commenting below or submit a story of your own.

Olympic athletes that beat the odds

If you live in the United States and plan to watch the 2008 Summer Olympics you will certainly hear inspiring, and deservedly heart warming stories of althletes that succeeded in spite of significant challenges.  In the sport of swimming alone you’ve likely already heard about Dara Torres and Eric Shanteau.  Torres, coming out of retirement at the age of 41 is setting records and Shanteau is battling testicular cancer but plans to postpone treatment until after the games.

Looking outside the US one can also find tremendous stories of athletes achieving their dreams while overcoming tremendous obstacles.

The BBC has a series online titled “Against the Odds” which profiles such inspiring athletes.   Follow these links to see the following stories:

Nery Brenes
Costa Rican sprinter who left behind a town hit by gang violence to get to Beijing

Bernadett Baczko
Neither family tragedy nor serious injury deterred this Hungarian judoka

Hem Bunting
A crumbling Cambodian athletics stadium is home to marathon runner Hem

Ziad Richa
Meet the Lebanese clay pigeon shooter training in the hills around Beirut

Vijender Kumar
An unsung boxing champion fights for recognition in cricket-mad India

Samiya Yuusf Omar
A 16-year-old’s amazing journey from war-ravaged Somalia to the Olympic Games

The BBC should be lauded for creating such a compelling series.

Young boy plays baseball despite cancer

Inspirational stories and people can be found in towns and cities around the globe.  One particular young man of note is Hudson Davis of Lafayette, CA.

The Contra Costa Times provided an in-depth article chronicling Hudson’s efforts that one would find truly inspirational.

The 12-year-old from Lafayette is nearing the completion of a Little League season in which he helped pitch and hit his team to first place and was named to his league’s all-star squad. That would be a distinguished achievement for any youngster.

What’s especially remarkable about Hudson is that he did all that while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments for a malignant brain tumor discovered long before his season started.

Nothing was going to stop Hudson from playing baseball.  His persistence inspired his parents, coaches, friends, teammates and even Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins.

For Hudson, the motivation was simple.  He wanted to play baseball.

“The only time you saw a smile on the kid’s face was when he was on the baseball field,” said Greg Davis, Hudson’s father.  “It was the only time he could really escape all the things that were happening to him.  He’s been through hell and back with all the stuff he’s been through.  But playing baseball definitely helped him get through it.”

The best news is that the tumor is gone, and that Hudson had his final radiation treatment on Wednesday. He will continue long-term care for the foreseeable future, but the worst appears to be over and his prognosis for survival is excellent.

Read the entire Contra Costa Times article here.

Near the beginning of his treatment Hudson was befriended by Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies.  Jimmy Rollins was named Major League Baseball’s National League MVP of 2007.  Jimmy dedicated his first homerun of the 2008 season to Hudson.

On May 11, with the Phillies visiting San Francisco to play the Giants, Jimmy invited Hudson down onto the field during batting practice so they could meet and talk face-to-face for the first time.  Jimmy has been a real inspiration for Hudson.

hudson

Sources: contracostatimes.com, abeldogs.com

Open-water swimmer Chloe Sutton, 16, heads to Beijing

You will be hearing a lot about Chloe Sutton, the 16-year-old swimming pioneer.  She is likely the youngest member of the US Olympic team, and she is forging ground in a new Olympic sporting event - open water swimming.

Her teammates have taken a keen interest in understanding not only the event, but also Sutton’s motivation for participating in a swimming event outside the traditional olympic pool.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s so crazy; I would never do that,’ ” Sutton said. “At the airport, I was sitting on the ground and they were all in chairs. They’re like ‘How does it work? How do you start? Is it really physical? Do you eat during a race?’

“They’ve never seen it before. It’s so new, so different. They’re really interested in what I go through out there.”

“In open water, you don’t know what’s out there. … You never know if you’re going to have a bad turn and get stuck in the pack and have to battle your way out.

“It’s such a thrill. It makes you feel so alive. It’s a great experience.”

John Schumacher of the Sacramento Bee wrote a great article on Chloe in today’s paper.  Please read it here.

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