New England sports fans have much to be thankful for in recent years. With the success of the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics, has it ever gotten any better for any fan base in any city? I’m hard pressed to imagine how. Of all the titles, popular opinion is that the story of the 2004 Red Sox was the most special since it broke 86 years of futility and the so called curse of the bambino. That’s the curse that supposedly befell the Red Sox after being stupid enough to trade Babe Ruth. Even if you believe in that kind of thing, did it have to take 86 years? What’s the shelf life on curses? Anyway, it was special but it wasn’t my favorite. Stay tuned for that.

Now, for serious adults, appreciation of these accomplishments may seem frivolous. Many years ago, before the ascendancy of Boston sports, I used to commute to work with just such an adult who frowned on anyone investing any emotion in team sports. All fandom was silly in his mind. It made me think. Was I silly in having these heroes? Did it enhance my existence in any way? This is the question I’d like to address here using my favorite example.

In 2001 the New England Patriots were coming off a 5 win season in which they lost their last game to Miami in bizarre fashion. Players were called back onto the field from the locker room to finish the last few seconds of a game that they thought was over. Many were in towels and flip flops. Talk about prolonging the agony. The debacle of that 2000 season had started with hiring Coach Bill Belichick away from the Jets. In a press conference in New York, he gave a long rambling speech just to say he was resigning after a day as Jets head coach.

Needless to say expectations were low for the 2001 season… and they would get lower. After starting the season with a loss and enduring the terrorist attacks of September 11, the region and nation were in a somber mood. The NFL took a week off but decided that resuming the schedule the following week would be healthy and of course profitable. I was just as happy to be distracted with football given the new global reality.

The Patriots hosted the New York Jets for the second game. In the fourth quarter they were trailing by just a touchdown and franchise quarterback Drew Bledsoe had the ball. Not a bad position until Jets linebacker Mo Lewis nearly killed him with a legal but vicious hit. Afterwards, at the hospital, doctors discovered and repaired a sheared blood vessel in the quarterback’s chest. The Patriots went on to lose that game but the fortunes of the team took a dramatic turn with the advent of Tom Brady as Bledsoe’s replacement.

About six months after Brady’s debut, the lowly Patriots upset the ‘greatest show on turf’ otherwise known as the St. Louis Rams in an unlikely Superbowl victory. It sent me on a fandom high that lasted several days. Some things on my personal and professional to do lists slid as I consumed every bit of analysis I could find so I could relive the victory for as long as possible. I saw how they accomplished their goal and it inspired me to duplicate their discipline in my own endeavors. It worked. My success lasted well beyond the few days of euphoria after the Superbowl win. Now there’s value, the value of having heroes to make us feel good about putting in the hard work to succeed. And it doesn’t even have to involve our local athletes. Who, other than Indianapolis fans, didn’t feel good about New Orleans winning their Superbowl? After the devastation wrought by Katrina I have to imagine that the Saints fans enjoyed a little ray of sunshine in their lives as well.

So do sports matter? I say they do. Its heroes exemplify the same values of hard work, discipline and dedication as any classic heroes. Athletes also have the power to inspire others to excel in many different areas of endeavor. In my writing I’ve tried to do justice to this effect as my heroes occasionally draw strength from real sports events. My JFK from an alternate reality reveled in the Patriots first Superbowl victory as I’m sure the real John Kennedy would have. But fictional fans or otherwise the world is a richer place for sports.

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As an American I’m proud of the contributions the United States has made for the betterment of mankind. From Clipper ships, to the Panama Canal, to the Internet, all of mankind has benefited from the restless American drive to strain the limits of our potential. One achievement, however, stands out in terms of its daring and ability to inspire imaginations around the world.  And even if you take away its heroic aspects, the remaining legacy of technological advancement is immeasurable.

When I was a kid, President Kennedy was the man who came on TV and interrupted the Flintstones. I had no appreciation of what he was saying or its implications for the world at that time. It was only later that I came to admire his leadership on the many challenges of his day, not the least of which was the grand adventure known as the Apollo program.

Most people have heard the words: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. They were spoken on September 12th, 1962 by then President Kennedy at Rice University. Inspired by Cold War competition he laid out a bold vision that few Presidents would have risked their legacies on. If the soviets were going into orbit then we would go to the moon and not just with unmanned probes.

Talking about the moon shot Kennedy continued: “that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”  Well, we did win and win big as Neil Armstrong fulfilled the Presidents promise and stepped onto the moon’s surface just seven years later. It was a heady time as Americans came together in support of a goal that will go down in history as a milestone in human achievement. A theme that I hope I did justice to as part of the novel, The Kennedy Effect.

Today the exploration of space continues with more international cooperation than ever. Who can doubt that many more adventures lay ahead as mankind pushes out to the planets and ultimately the stars. Perhaps, some future leader will, as Kennedy did at Rice University, give an updated capsule of man’s historic accomplishments. Perhaps he, or she, will cite accomplishments in space that we can only dream of today. Perhaps a preview of that capsule can be found in today’s speculative science fiction.

One of the more moving film trailers that I’ve ever seen is the one for the 2009 movie Star Trek. As the iconic Star Ship Enterprise takes shape in dry dock a dramatic musical score accompanies some historic sound bites from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. But, as in reality, it starts with President Kennedy’s voice in an excerpt from his speech at Rice University.

“For the eyes of the world now look into space”

“Godspeed, John Glenn”

“The Eagle has landed”

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

And it ends with the opening recital of the Star Ship Enterprise’s mission,“Space, the final frontier…”. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be touched by those few minutes. The sixties, for all their flaws, gave us a reason to be proud as well as an enduring vision for our future. May we boldly go where this grand adventure leads us. May we realize the new opportunities for knowledge and peace that President Kennedy hoped for at the beginning of the Space Age.

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Two milestone anniversaries will occur in early September of 2016. They are 911 and Star Trek. It’s ironic that these concepts are memorialized around the same time of year. They are polar opposites in what they reveal about our species. The 15th anniversary of 911 sharply illustrates our divisive tendency to address a grievance with murderous destruction. The 50th anniversary of Star Trek celebrates a vision of unity in pursuing man’s best potential.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001 I was busy at my desk when I got a call from my wife. She told me a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers in New York. An accident? I turned on the news. The dots were soon connected to implicate Al Qaeda in an act of terrorism. Nineteen misguided individuals acting on a perceived grievance took their own lives along with three thousand innocents in a fiery cataclysm. I recall my first reaction was ‘how dare they’. To purposely go out of their way to do us harm. What right did they have?

By late that morning the scenes of carnage had played over and over on TV. One had to relive the horrific images to get the latest information. My wife came home early and we decided to get away from it to get some perspective. As we met other cars on the road I noted everyone went out of their way to be polite. The empathy for one’s fellow citizens was like nothing I’d experienced before. I imagined that it must have been the same after Pearl Harbor. I never felt so American, so connected with my neighbors and fellow citizens. We’d suffered a collective trauma and at that moment in our history the better angels of our nature emerged.

It was a beautiful September day and several thoughts and feelings raced through my mind. My home and birthplace, the world’s mightiest nation, seemed smaller and more vulnerable than I ever believed it could be. The Cold War was won but a new era had begun with man organized into new camps carrying the same suspicion and hatred as the old conflict. Dreams of a post Cold War golden age free of conflict burst like a bubble. Must the end of every conflict signal a new one? Is there a better model to aspire to?

35 years earlier…

Back in 1966 I was in the fifth grade and subject to a fairly strict 8:30 bed time. But when you’re 9 years old you’re never ready to go to bed so when 8:30 rolled around I tried to become invisible. Sometimes it bought me a few extra minutes and one of those times, on a Thursday evening, as the minute hand crept past the half hour I spied my first few minutes of Star Trek. My world would never be the same. Risking discovery I couldn’t help but to ask my father about Mr. Spock. He told me he was a Vulcan. I asked other questions but ultimately settled down to watch the show with open mouthed fascination. For some reason I was allowed to stay up that night. I don’t know if my parents thought I’d forget when Thursday rolled around again but they were sadly mistaken if so. Suffice it to say Thursday became the exception to my typical bed time.

I always liked Sci-Fi but Trek was radically different. Unlike other spaceships, the Enterprise flew to alien worlds at warp speed, now boldly going where rocket ships had shakily landed on their tail fires before. Captain Kirk and his crew represented a united interstellar community of space faring races. Another new concept. Their Federation was a grand union born of uncommon cooperation, dedicated to exploration. The ship’s complement was drawn from many backgrounds with names like Sulu, Uhura, Scott and McCoy yet they worked together with military efficiency. One of the more provocative visions left to us by Star Trek was its ideal of an all inclusive society.

There’s no doubt which anniversary will get the most media coverage in early September of 2016. After all, 911 was a real event. Both anniversaries, however, inspired large groups of people. As inspirations go, let us hope that Gene Roddenberry leaves the more lasting legacy. His vision for the future valued human life and celebrated it’s unity. As Khan Noonien Singh once said, ‘Think of its accomplishments’.

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