Born in Brooklyn, raised in Hollywood, Joseph Sutton has been a University of Oregon football player, high school teacher and costume jewelry salesman.  He is the author of Write Now! On the Road to Getting Published or How I Learned to Sell My Book; Morning Pages: The Almost True Story of My Life; The Immortal Mouth and Other Stories; and Words of Wellness: A Treasury of Quotations for Well-Being.  His short stories and essays have appeared in nationally recognized magazines and journals such as Tin House, Glimmer Train, The Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, Writer's Digest and Writers' Journal.  Sutton lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.

A father and his 10-year-old son are throwing the football around on their front lawn when the boy asks his father if he ever had a hero.  The father says yes, he once had a hero, but doesn't believe in heroes anymore.  His son wants to know why and the father relates a painful experience he had with his sports hero when he was a teenager.  The son brushes the incident off as a misunderstanding, then tells his father that he has a hero.  "Who?" his father asks, and the son answers, "You, Dad."

                                    THE HERO

    "Dad," ten-year-old Bobby asked as they were passing the football back and forth on their front lawn, "did you ever have a hero?"
    "I sure did," his father said, throwing the football to his son.  "Glenn Cameron was his name.  He was an All-American at UCLA and an All-Pro quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams.  Did you ever hear of him?"
    "Nope," replied Bobby, picking up the ball he couldn't catch.
    Bobby's father felt a twinge of sadness.  Heck, he thought, when I was ten I knew all the football greats—Jim Thorpe, Ernie Nevers, Bronko Nagurski, Red Grange.  Why doesn't my son know about Glenn Cameron?
    Unleashing a wobbly pass to his father, Bobby asked, "Did you ever want to be like Glenn Cameron?"
    Bobby's father caught the ball, thought for a moment, then said, "I wanted to be exactly like him as a football player, but off the field, forget it," and he threw the ball back to his son.
    "Why not off the field?" asked Bobby, dropping another one of his father's passes.
    Seeing his son drop two passes in a row, Bobby's father got a little irritated.  "The ball's not going to bite you, son," he said sternly.  "Use your hands to catch it, not your arms."
    Bobby didn't like the tone of his father's voice.  "Mind your own business," he told his father under his breath.  "I don't need an old man with gray hair telling me how to catch a football."  Holding in his anger, he asked his father, "Why didn't you want to be like Glenn Cameron off the field?"
    "Because I had a very bad experience with him when I was thirteen."
    Bobby was surprised.  "You mean you actually met an All-Pro quarterback?"
    "We met," his father said sourly, "but it wasn't the kind of meeting you'd like to hear about."
    Bobby caught the football the right way this time and thought to himself:  It is easier to catch the ball with my hands.  "Good catch," he heard his father say.
    "Tell me about when you met him, Dad?"
    "You're too young."
    "No, I'm not," declared Bobby.  "Come on, Dad," he urged, "you know I'm old enough."
    "Good pass," his father praised him.  "It seems as if your arm is getting stronger."
    Bobby knew that when his father complimented him, he really meant it.  He felt more relaxed and confident now.  "Tell me about Glenn Cameron, Dad."
    "So you want to hear about our meeting, huh?" his father said, giving in easily.
    "You know I do."
    "Well, don't blame me if you end up hating your heroes."
    "Just tell me what happened, Dad."
    "Well, you asked for it," his father said..........