Archive: Opinions

I was in North Carolina Saturday when I received a call with the shocking news that Adam Heck had died.  It was hard to believe I had heard this news right.  Adam was only 42, and such a fixture in Lansing sports that it was inconceivable that he could be gone.  But he was more than a fixture.  He was a power for good.  And he used his power to do a lot of good.  This week I haven't been able to stop thinking about the sheer volume of people whose lives he is no longer able to enrich and that seems, somehow, to multiply the loss exponentially..

I knew Adam a little when my kids were in school, and more since the Lansing Star began and I had the honor of talking to him from time to time.  He was endlessly patient with my sports inability (yeah, I was the dad who didn't know your kid is supposed to have a baseball glove on the first day of T-Ball, and to this day can't keep the meanings or even the sports of 'bunt' and 'punt' straight).  Adam never let on to me if he minded explaining for the umpteenth time how a sport worked.

From a journalist's point of view he could be one of the most frustrating news-makers because he didn't like to talk about himself, despite the huge list of achievements and honors he earned.  I thought these accomplishments of his were big news.  But Adam didn't want to take the focus from his young athletes.  He was always willing to talk at length about the student athletes and their coaches, and always with a positive spin. 

Adam always made sure that I (and all the local journalists) were invited to Lansing athlete's sports college scholarship acceptance signings, a crowning achievement of their public school career.  I went to a bunch of these during the time Adam served as Athletic Director, and I was always struck by how invisible he made himself.  The spotlight was only on the student and his or her parents, never on himself.  I remember one time thinking it was odd he wasn't attending a signing, but on careful inspection I found him lurking in the back with a big smile on his face.

Adam always downplayed Lansing's remarkable success at winning in so many sports.  Winning was nice, but it was all about respect and sportsmanship and teamwork when he talked to me about Lansing teams.  He loved talking about students' working hard and supporting each other, building solidarity and working as a team no matter how accomplished one athlete or another was.  And being respectful of opposing teams and learning from them and each other.

I can imagine a bit of what his wife and two young daughters are facing right now, because Adam is the second person I knew here who died at this age, leaving two children behind.  That person was also a kind, thoughtful man who was all about helping children and taking leadership roles in things that build character like youth sports and scouts.  Why are the best of us the ones who are taken early?

A silver lining for his family in this tragedy is that this community is endlessly supportive, rallying when one of its own faces life's challenges.  That is another testament to people like Adam, who really care about the people around them and are willing to step up in tangible ways to support them.  In turn, he was loved and respected by a huge number of people in the local community, as well as in the larger statewide sports community.

Here is what I kept thinking on the long drive home Sunday: even to a sport-impaired person like me, Adam was able to make me understand how sports are an important way to learn about and experience the things that really matter in human interactions.  I know the things I learned just from interviewing him for newspaper articles will influence me for the rest of my life.  He will live more profoundly in in his friends and colleagues and especially in the lucky students he coached and mentored for more than two decades.

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