bELieving in Eric LeGrand: Injured Rutgers Player’s ESPY Speech Is Inspiration
By Kyle Kensing
Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.
– James Lane Allen
Former Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand is not a hero because he suffered a potentially life threatening injury in October 2010. LeGrand is not even a hero because of his response since the injury.
If adversity reveals character, LeGrand was always a hero, well before that fateful RU-Army football game that changed the course of his life. LeGrand used a tragedy that would force some into cocoons of self pity or scorn to share with us his daily struggle back to stand. To walk. To do those things we so often take for granted.
But LeGrand doesn’t begrudge others taking their fortune for granted. He doesn’t dwell on his own misfortune. He shares with America a message of hope, and exemplifies what it means to pursue dreams, undeterred.
Watch Wednesday’s video here via SBNation.
LeGrand received the Jimmy V. Perseverance Award at Wednesday’s ESPY Awards, an honor named for former NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano. A cancer stricken Valvano delivered an impassioned speech at the first ESPYs, a moment that really is the reason the ESPN award show has lasted two decades.
The program lends itself to frivolity that remind cynics of its commercialism and airtime filler. But moments like Valvano’s and LeGrand’s far transcend any of that. Even the most jaded can take their outlooks and find inspiration.
A hero is one whose nobility and selflessness makes others’ lives better. If every college football fan emulated LeGrand’s determination, his positivity, our lives would improve.
No, it wasn’t the injury that made him a hero. Eric LeGrand was always a hero.
Standing tall, we can’t fall.
– Eric LeGrand
(via @EricLeGrand52)