Being A Hero Isn’t An Easy Task

Though I heard plenty of comments last week after Shannon Faulkner quit The Citadel - the all-male South Carolina military college she’d spent 2-1/2 years fighting to enter - only two resonated.

The first came from one of my male colleagues.

“Jackie Robinson she ain’t,” he said.

My response to the comment was clear - I found it unfair.

Robinson, who became the first black player to integrate major-league baseball in 1947, was 28 years old when he made history. That’s a decade older than Faulkner was in 1993 when she sued The Citadel for admittance as its first female student in its 152-year history.

Most of us do a lot of maturing between 18 and 28. Robinson’s intelligence, integrity and determination were exceptional for a man of any age. Those qualities caused Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey to handpick him for an unthinkable challenge.

Faulkner, on the other hand, picked herself. Before and after she quit, many wondered why she had taken on the challenge. Frankly, I haven’t a clue. Whatever the reason and despite my doubts about her mission, I admired the grit that had brought her to the moment when she triumphantly joined 589 other freshmen as The Citadel’s first female cadet.

Less than a week later, she quit.

This is not what we expect from pioneers. Quitting for reasons of mental and emotional exhaustion is understandable but fails to meet the standard set by past trailblazers - the ability to confront impossible odds, to achieve in the face of unbearable hostility. We expect such people to win. We don’t expect that midway through their first day as pioneers, they’ll get a stomachache and take to their beds; we don’t expect to witness their self-imposed demotion from Kick-butt Heroes to Everyday Mortals.

We expect too much.

Because she had set herself up as a cause celebre, Faulkner’s humiliation was distressingly public. So was her triumph.

Which brings me to the second comment, from a friend, a young woman slightly older than Faulkner: “I’m sorry for her, but after all that, she should have at least been in shape.”

Somehow, the second comment made me rethink the first. And I wondered: What if Jackie Robinson hadn’t been ready? What if he’d arrived at spring training out of shape and lacking the ability not just to succeed but also to become 1947’s Rookie of the Year and an eventual Hall of Fame legend? What would have happened if - after the 15th scrawled death threat or the 25th racial epithet - Robinson had, well, gone home?

Someone else would have done the job. Some other black ballplayer would have become our impossible hero. That likely will happen now at The Citadel - other young women inspired by Faulkner will enroll and graduate. Feminism will survive.

But half a century ago, African Americans feared they couldn’t afford a failure. And Robinson wasn’t about to test if they were right. His widow, Rachel, has said that rising to that challenge took an immeasurable toll on her husband.

Heroism is hard work. I can’t blame Faulkner for not being up to it.

But perhaps she didn’t truly fail. Perhaps she focused so hard on achieving the honor - or the fame - of being the first woman admitted to The Citadel that she overlooked doing the work, laying the mental and physical foundation necessary to become the first woman to graduate.

What was unfair for Robinson 50 years ago remains unfair for Faulkner today: Would-be pioneers who insist that they’re equal should be ready to prove that they are, in fact, superior.

At the very least, they should take to heart an admonition associated with another venerable all-male institution. It’s the Boy Scouts motto - “Be prepared.”

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