Human Hall of Fame

I am not a collector of things, even when those items relate to Ohio State. In fact, I have only three bobble heads that grace my OSU shelf. One is, of course, in the image of Woody Hayes since he is the iconic gridiron hero around these parts. The second is an Archie bobble for equally obvious reasons. The third little statue is shaped after a kid who wasn’t that big and wasn’t that fast, yet was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last weekend.

I am speaking of course about Chris Spielman. Spielman happens to be the same age as I am, so there is a special bond between the two of us that is shared only in my mind. Spielman is the poster boy for toughness, endurance, work ethic and desire to become the best that he can be. As a linebacker, he made tackle after tackle despite being a tad slow and an inch too short. He was an unstoppable force on the field and became the epitome of hard-nosed Midwestern football.

But for all of his exploits as a player, it is what he has accomplished as a person that has endeared him forever to my heart. His wife Stefanie died last November after a long and brutal war against cancer. I am a man who dearly loves his own wife, so I know when a husband has true and pure affection for his spouse. Chris Spielman loved his wife. He was with her to the end and shaved his own head when the chemo eliminated Stefanie’s. He walked away from football when she first became sick and was truly amazed when people talked about what a great thing he had done.

“What man wouldn’t do that for his wife,” he asked.

After her death, he became a single father of four children and all things were new. New rules and new parenting and new days to conquer. It was that  desire to do his best in every thing he did that now enabled him to carry on.

(That and the grace of Christ, for all of us wacky Christians who still believe is such quaint concepts.)

To me, it was a no-brainer that  Spielman would be inducted into the college HOF, and one day I believe he will make his way to Canton, which, having played high school football for Massillon, is the only time he wants to be in Canton. But it is what he represents as a man, as a father, as a grieving husband, as a human being dealing with obstacles that come in the form of fullbacks or free radical cells that enable his statue to grace my personal collection.