he·ro
[heer-oh]
–noun, plural -roes; for 5 also -ros.
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.
4. Classical Mythology .
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.
5. hero sandwich.
6. the bread or roll used in making a hero sandwich.
....so you can imagine why i was so stunned when i was contacted by the maine red claws asking me to be honored as a home court hero. umm....i don't really fit any of the above definitions. the closest i come to a hero is that i love to eat hero sandwiches.
however, a few weeks ago i received this email....
Hello Sarah,
My name is Courtney and I'm an intern for the Maine Red Claws. As part of my internship, I'm in charge of finding a TD Bank Home Court Hero for every home game throughout the season. I read your story from the Portland Press Herald and as an organization, we would like to honor you at one of our games. What you are doing for your brother and for autism awareness is amazing.
As a Home Court Hero, we'd call you to center court during one of our time-outs and honor you in front of everyone at the game. We would do a write-up on your story that will be announced and if you have a video to go along with it, we'd play that as well. Also, you get two court side silver seat tickets. If you'd like more of your family to attend, we may be able to work something out and get more tickets for you.
I really look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you so much.
Best Regards
Courtney
while i don't consider myself a hero or the work i am doing heroic, i gladly accepted their offer (you can read the newspaper article here). last friday ruddley, ty and i went to our first red claws game. we had such a blast. the seats were amazing...court side, second row. i was initially a little worried about how close we were to the court and the possibility of ty getting hit with a ball or a player crashing into us. i decided to let it play out and see how it went. the players came out for their pre-game stuff and ty was sooo fascinated with them. we tried to take a few pictures and we couldn't get him to look away from the court and at the camera for a picture.
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| exhibit a |
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| exhibit b |
haha....how cute is he?? ok. ok....back to the game:-) so somewhere in the middle of the first quarter a ball came flying out of bound and whizzed by ruddley's head. one of the springfield players saw ty sitting with us and started yelling at us for bringing a baby so close to the court. he then tried to tell the ref...not really sure what he wanted the ref to do about it. then a bunch of people in the front row started giving us dirty looks as if to say "i can't believe you brought a baby here. you bad parents". yea...they were that dirty. it kinda ruined my night. i knew we were close to the action, but i was also paying attention and making sure ty was ok. ruddley told me that maybe we should have gotten a babysitter for the night. NO! i refuse. this was a family outing and im not going to leave my son at home because of what other people thought of us. ruddley took ty away from the action for a while and went and bought some goodies at the team store. you know, goodies like a bib that says "maine red claws. it's ok to dribble" and a small stuffed lobster. can you say first time parents!? so i sat in the court side seats...by myself. ruddley and ty found seats in the bleachers and as soon as i got my award i went and sat with them.
while i was sitting there by myself i started to think about how i don't feel like i truly deserve this award and if i was going to accept it, i need to start doing things that are more hero like:-) i need to do more. sure, i have started the maine chapter of train 4 autism, but now i need to do something with it. im not 100% sure how though. i've sent a few emails out to other successful chapter presidents to find out things that they have done with their chapter.
i know there are a few of us running the mdi marathon and i think id like to do more with that. i have a few fundraisers in mind that i need to put into place and one other thing that im not going to share yet...i really hope it happens but it's taking a little longer to put into place then i had hoped. i'll be sure to let you know as soon as i can though:-)
overall, it was an awesome night and i was honored to receive the award. what? you want to know what it looks like? ok, ok....here it is:-)
i need your help though!! how can i build my train 4 autism chapter? any ideas??? i want to feel like i deserve this award.
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