God Bless Willie Kane!

Orlando Sentinel Story Link

Distance runner, not Taylor, reveals the best in sports
By columnist Mike Bianchi; Published January 11, 2006

Sometimes in this business, you write the wrong column.

I did Saturday.

I attended two sporting events that day -- I ran the Walt Disney World Half Marathon in the morning and covered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' playoff game against Washington that evening. I never should have left the half marathon.

I should have written about Willie Kane instead of writing about a football game where one NFL millionaire actually spit into the face of another NFL millionaire.

You don't know who Willie Kane is, but you should. Because he died trying Saturday.

He did what our high-school coaches always told us to do: He put his entire heart into the cause. Literally.

He'd just crossed the finish line at the half marathon when he collapsed. Paramedics tried to revive him, but it didn't work. He was dead at age 43, leaving behind two sons -- Parker, 5, and Chad, 2.

One of the main reasons Kane, a golf pro from Tucson, Ariz., took up running is because his father died at age 42 when he was 5 years old.

"Willie started running because he wanted to get in shape so he'd be there to see his kids grow up," says Mike Hayes, a longtime friend. "Plus, he just loved sports. They were his passion."

It seems we get so consumed by the clanging clamor of celebrity athletes that we don't hear the true song of sports anymore. The simple melody of competition and camaraderie has been drowned out by the babble and bedlam created by knuckleheads such as Redskins safety Sean Taylor, the former University of Miami star who was fined $17,000 for spitting into the face of Tampa Bay's Michael Pittman.

Taylor might be the best pure athlete in the NFL, but he doesn't respect the game he plays, the team he plays for or the people he plays against. He wouldn't even return the phone calls of his legendary coach -- Joe Gibbs -- during the off-season. After only one year in the NFL, he wanted to renegotiate his $40 million contract -- and this was after being arrested and charged with felony assault during the summer.

Willie Kane, a runner who finished 4,871st in a field of 11,761 in 2:27:36, was 10 times the sportsman Sean Taylor ever will be. Willie's dream was to be a tour golfer. He talked his way onto his high-school team, practiced until his hands were bloody, became all-conference in college at Arizona and spent years scraping by on mini-tour paychecks.

He never made it to the big show, but he was a big man nonetheless. Willie moved back to his hometown, took a job as a golf pro at a local municipal course and became a mentor to hundreds of youth golfers. He also was a volunteer coach for the golf team at his old high school.

Willie went through a devastating divorce not long ago and took up running shortly thereafter. It was therapeutic. It helped him get in shape physically -- and psychologically.

Before Willie left for Orlando last week, Hayes asked his friend why. Why spend all that money to fly cross country and stay in a hotel -- just so you can torture your body for 13.1 miles?

"Because I love it," Willie said.

Hayes' voice crackles over the phone line.

"Willie died doing what he wanted to do."

Says Rick Tornquist, another friend: "Willie finished that race. No matter what, he was going to finish."

And isn't that why we watch sports, play them, write about them -- because of the passion, perseverance and purity of people such as Willie Kane?

Thanks, Willie, for reminding us what sports are supposed to be about.

Thanks for wiping the spit off our faces and putting a smile back on them.

Mike Bianchi can be reached at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com.