The World Of Sports: It’s Not All Bad At Times When It Seems Overrun By Darkness, There Are Still Golden Moments That Keep Us Coming Back

Sometimes it’s something as simple as a smile. Or a play so breathtaking you’re unsure how we survived before instant replay. Or the gleam in the eye of an athlete who has overcome more than we can understand to win something. Anything. It’s what can move a pack of millionaires to joyously mob an anonymous nobody for winning a car with a halfcourt shot.

It’s what is good and pure and heartwarming about sports.

At times when sports seem overrun by the darkness that threatens the rest of our lives - violence, drugs, greed, a lack of respect and caring for people not exactly like us - there still are enough of the golden moments that keep us coming back.

How can sports be all bad if Dan Jansen finally won a speedskating gold medal in the Olympics? How can we feel anything but terrific watching him carry his baby daughter Jane, named after his late sister, during a victory lap?

How can sports be all bad if …

Hockey continues the best tradition in the world.

After a playoff series, the losing team lines up on the ice to congratulate the winner and the gesture isn’t a perfunctory shake-hands-while-muttering-under-your-breath deal. Players exchange hugs and genuine feelings and take their time doing so. Why every other sport does not adopt this is a mystery.

Grant Hill comes along in time to save the NBA from petulant crybabies.

Hill seemed too good to be true when he joined the league last year. He signed quickly with the Detroit Pistons, immediately outlined his charity plans in the city, spread cheer and goodwill among his teammates and Pistons fans and then proceeded to wow them all on the court. All this before most rookies figure out what an illegal defense is.

Hill is for real. He is as nice as he seems on TV. His parents are sweet and loving. He has a way of making anyone he’s talking to feel like the more important person in the conversation. He is smart. He is funny. He can be shy. He is human, in the best sense of the word.

Players sniffed when he became the first rookie ever to lead the All-Star balloting. They should have been taking notes.

Peter Jacobsen made his way to the top level of golf.

Jacobsen stood out on the PGA Tour even when he was mediocre because he was a rare find - a guy who had fun playing golf and shared that fun with those around him. Everyone loved his starring role in Jake Trout and the Flounders, a rock group consisting of tour players. He has an infectious sense of humor and everyone wanted him to do well because he was such a blast. But he rarely did.

That all changed when Jacobsen won consecutive tournaments this spring. He had overcome a dwindling career and the emotional punch delivered by the AIDS-caused death of his brother in 1988 and the cancer-caused death of his father in 1992.

During the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he saw a seagull circling overhead. He said he thought it was a sign from his father, that he was watching from above. Jacobsen won the tournament.

Ozzie Guillen gives baseball players a good name.

It was a minor item in most sports sections, but the shooting death of former major league infielder Gus Polidor was a major tragedy in the life of Guillen, the Chicago White Sox shortstop.

He left his team to attend the funeral of his childhood friend. While in Venezuela, Guillen vowed to take care of Polidor’s wife and three children.

“I will be a father to them, and they will move into my house,” Guillen said. “This summer when I bring my family to Chicago, I will bring my two wives and my six children. I’m going to make sure that I take care of them for the rest of their lives.”

A skinny little guy named Elliot Perry was the best player in the NBA for a week.

Perry, who spent his first three post-college seasons in the CBA or at the end of NBA benches, was starting at point guard for the Phoenix Suns while Kevin Johnson was on the injured list. He played so splendidly that the NBA named him the player of the week in November.

He was such an asset to the Suns that during the All-Star game, Charles Barkley wore his socks high up his calves in honor of Perry, whose high-socks look earned him the nickname “Socks” in Phoenix. He did so at great risk to his fashion-conscious image. “I looked like an idiot,” Barkley said.

Perry finished second to the Sixers’ Dana Barros in the balloting for most improved player, but came further than anyone. He started 51 games and was one of three Suns to play in all 82 games. He was eighth in the league in steals and had the second-best shooting percentage of any guard in the NBA (52 percent).

“The world needs more stories like Elliot Perry,” Suns coach Paul Westphal said.

The best part is that Perry is as good a person as you ever will find. He is quiet and humble and respectful. He worked diligently to make an NBA player out of his skinny 6-foot self. He can be found before games reading the Bible at his locker. He doesn’t drink or swear.

From obscurity, he has risen to become a coveted free-agent point guard.

“To me, it’s a blessing more than a success story,” Perry said. “The good Lord put me in a position where I couldn’t fail.”

Chucky Mullins’ memory lives.

Brad Gaines, a former Vanderbilt receiver, continues to visit the grave of Mullins in Russellville, Ala., twice a year. He clears the weeds away and cleans the headstone.

It was Gaines whom Mullins tackled in a game between Vanderbilt and Ole Miss on Oct. 28, 1989. The hit broke Mullins’ neck and left him paralyzed. For the remaining 18 months of his life, Mullins inspired people as he courageously rebuilt his life. He returned to attend classes at Ole Miss and the school custom-built him a house with the money that poured in from people around the country.

A blood clot killed Mullins in 1991, but his memory should live on. Mullins was a poor, black kid from a town in the deep South, and became a national symbol of courage and determination. Gaines wants everyone to remember that as keenly as he does.

“Chucky always assured me that I had nothing to do with his injury, and I know that,” Gaines said. “Some people don’t see this side of an athlete, but I love this guy and I always will.”

Sports can’t possibly be all bad.

Consider that the emotion expressed so freely in the field of play is taboo elsewhere. Men and women hug and pat the butts of athletes of the same sex in elation or consolation and not a thing is thought of it. Once they leave the court, such actions are grounds for character assassination.

Sports is still a little better than the rest of life. The competition part remains real and the truths it reveals can’t be hidden by politics or public relations spin-doctoring. We know who won and who lost, who gave the last ounce of their energy pursuing a win and who crumpled in agony after a loss. It is possible to do both with dignity.

It’s why we still care.