Why We Remain Fans ...

Some days, it seems to me as though the Sports Page, the Gossip Column and the Police Blotter are all tangled up over who gets to carry news of our nation's pro (and, sometimes, college) athletes ...

For example ... here, in the Lone Star State, it's hard to tell what got 'T.O.' more headlines ... his grabs on the field, or his gabs in the locker room?

So, why do we bother? My own feeling is that - maybe, just maybe - there's something about sport, as a general phenomenon, that is bigger than its individual practitioners ... that the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts ...

... that for all the glaring, lurid headlines, there are stories that rise to the surface, raising the image of 'sport' as they do, ennobling it and encouraging all of us that our love of sport, and those who practice sport, is not given in vain.

Here's one picture that tells a thousand words in just such a story ... that of an athlete who was not a winner in some respects, but was a winner in those other respects that truly mattered. A link to "Fallen Giant," the story behind the photo, its subject and its creation, is here, in the virtual pages of Smithsonian Magazine online.