Herb Brooks: Heroic Hockey Coach
Many people believe heroes must have super powers like Superman or the Green Lantern. However, ordinary people have also been considered heroes for doing extraordinary feats, such as Rosa Parks not giving up her seat, or Abraham Lincoln fighting to free the slaves. Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo, two psychologists who study heroism, believe that ordinary people can be heroes. In “The Banality of Heroism,” they state that all people are potential heroes waiting for a chance to be heroic. Most of the time, people fall into a trap of inaction, or the “bystander effect,” during which in the instance of an emergency they assume that another person will take action. So how does one seize the chance to become a hero? In my opinion, Herb Brooks is a great example of a hero. He can be seen as a romantic hero because he was loyal to the 1980 United States hockey team that defeated the Russians to win the gold medal.
In “The Banality of Heroism,” Franco and Zimbardo suggest that heroism must have four dimensions. It must have a quest, the person must have some sort of personal sacrifice or risk, it is either passive or active, and it can be sudden or happen over a longer period of time. Brooks’ heroism fits these four prerequisites. His quest was to take a group of college students and put them up against the best hockey teams in the world and win a gold medal. By undertaking this quest he sacrificed time that could be spent with his family as well as his reputation if he were to fail. This is an example of active heroism because he is coaching a hockey team. Finally, his efforts could be considered sudden acts if you look at each individual game, or they could be seen as something that persists over a period of time, including training the team. For these reasons, Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo would consider Herb Brooks a hero.
Herb Brooks possesses characteristics that would suggest him to be a medieval hero, however he best represents the romantic hero by Vera Norman’s description. In her essay “Four Conceptions of Heroic,” Norman suggests that the medieval hero is loyal to his liege lord and wages war on behalf of his principles. Herb Brooks is loyal to the United States of America, and his hockey team playing against the rest of the world could be considered waging war to show that they are the best. However a medieval hero displays obedience to the hierarchy, and often times he breaks the rules to do what he thinks is necessary. The romantic hero best fits Herb Brooks because of his loyalty to the idea of his hockey team winning the gold medal. Because of this idea, the Soviet Union was no longer a world power. This makes Brooks a very good example of a romantic hero.
Herb Brooks can be labeled as a hero by Franco and Zimbardo and Norman; however, I can see reasons why someone might disagree that he was a hero. Some may think he did not make much of an impact in the world, but I disagree with this. As the coach of a gold medal hockey team, he was responsible for making the team as good as they could be, even though he wasn’t able to play himself. Because he made the team so good, they were able to beat the Soviet Union, which many considered to be the most powerful country in the world at the time. To many people it was much more than just a hockey game; it decided whether the Soviet Union would continue to gain power or fall. This is why I consider him a hero.
In conclusion, Herb Brooks is a strong example of a romantic hero. He fits the four dimensions of a hero presented by Franco and Zimbardo. He fits some of the traits that a medieval hero has; however, he fits the ideal of the romantic hero better because he is loyal to the idea of his team winning the gold medal. Brooks’ example is important because it shows that you can stand up to a greater power and succeed if you work hard for it.
