I Have a New Hero

            This past Sunday night, I found a new hero. It is not for his athletic prowess, although he is a wonderful athlete, it is not for his humility before the glaring lights of national scrutiny where he cried unabashedly, overcome with emotion in the face of terrible loss, and it is not for his displayed faith as he knelt and pointed skyward. All of those qualities contributed to my elevating him to hero status, but they are only hints who he is, and as to why I have placed him on a pedestal.

            James Torrey Smith was born on January 26, 1989, in Colonial Beach, Virginia, and grew up there, and in Fredericksburg with his mother Monica Jenkins. The oldest of seven children, Smith helped his single mother, who attended Rappahannock Community College in the day and worked at night, with household chores and earned honor roll grades in school, but that doesn't begin to tell the story.

            Torrey's father was not in his life, and other men fathered his siblings, but that did not diminish Torrey's sense of obligation to them. At the age of seven, Torrey assumed his role of older brother and became his brothers', and sisters' keeper. At that tender age, when most of us can't find the toilet, he was changing diapers, fixing lunches, and being a man. There are far too many grown men today who will not do either chore.

            As God will do, He gifted Torrey not only with a sense of responsibility, and maturity, but graced him with physical prowess, and intelligence, both of which he used to graduate with honors from a private high school while on scholarship, and to earn scholarships to college as well. He attended the University of Maryland where he set, and holds several Atlantic Coast Conferences records. He chose to forego his senior year and entered the NFL draft where he was the 58th pick by the Baltimore Ravens assuring him of being able to be located near his mother and siblings to provide financially, and be there physically as well. Torrey's assumed responsibility came crashing down on him on Sunday morning at 2:00 AM.

            His younger brother, a product of all that diaper changing and lunches, was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of nineteen. Torrey, on the day of playing before a national audience on Sunday Night Football, received the phone call that all parents, and he is as much parent as brother, dread, that one of their children has been killed. He called his coach, got permission to leave the team and went to Virginia to attend to family matters.

            Most of us would be grieving to the point that any consideration of work would be a passing thought. We would turn inward, soothe our hurting souls, and let the love of family and friends wash over us to ease our pain. Not Torrey, not this man of responsibility, of loyalty, of commitment, no, he, when things were arranged, and he had taken care of the needs of his family, called his coach and told him he was coming back and wanted to play.

            Coach John Harbaugh told him it was his call, he could play or not. Torrey had already decided. He was going to play in that critical game against the Raven's archrivals, the New England Patriots. Monday morning, after the Ravens one point victory, coach Harbaugh said that he left the decision to play in the hands of Torrey, and, "That if it didn't work out, it didn't, but he had earned the right to play."

            It worked out. Torrey Smith caught six passes for 127 yards, two of those, touchdowns, and was awarded a game ball. It isn't too much of a stretch to say that the Ravens would not have won without him, but Torrey saw it differently. "I didn't want to be out there, just running around, doing nothing. If I was going to be out there, I was going to give it my all. You're on the lines, you just want to make the play."

            "Afterwards is when you can sit back and reflect on things. My teammates, I love them to death, and they helped me get through this."

            Before last Sunday, I didn't know Torrey Smith. Now, I wish I knew him better. I do wonder, did Torrey's teammates help him through this, or was it Torrey helping them?

            A team of men working and playing together is a very close-knit group, they, as Willie Stargel said of the World Series Champion Pittsburg Pirates, "We are family." Torrey Smith knows family.

            It doesn't matter to him if they are not of the same blood as he is, half is good enough. They are family. It doesn't matter to him that 60 men, making millions of dollars and are not reliant on, or related to him, they are close enough, they are family. Torrey Smith has a sense of family. He knows what it is like to provide, to support, to protect, and to defend those he calls family, but I bet that Torrey Smith goes beyond that.

            I bet Torrey Smith would not hesitate to help a traveler who had been beaten and left in a ditch, to pay for his upkeep, and to promise the innkeeper that he would check back the next time he was back that way to see if there was any further reimbursement needed.  Yeah, I don't think my new hero has any problem with knowing who his brother is, or loving his neighbor. Lead on Torrey Smith, I'm chasing you.