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Emilee Wagner’s basketball credentials speak for themselves.
The Midd-West graduate, a four-year starter for the Mustangs, was the first and remains the only female 1,000-point scorer in the school’s still young history – and went on to surpass her brother Jerry, the only other to reach 1,000, and become the school’s all-time leading scorer.
She went on to play 2 1/2 years at Waynesburg University, appearing in 62 games, starting nearly a third of those.
Then the Beavertown native learned about courage.
In her junior year, Wagner suffered an injury that ended her playing days. She didn’t take it lying down – she ended up on the basketball staff as a student assistant while she finished her education.
Now, she’s standing up for another college basketball player, seeking a real act of courage by a television network that apparently doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
Wagner has started a petition online to try and persuade ESPN to rescind its decision to give the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award and present it instead to Lauren Hill, the women’s basketball player who stayed on the court through brain cancer until her death earlier this year.
Wagner’s effort undoubtedly was prompted by one of two Facebook memes on the award, which has been presented each year since 1993 as part of the sports network’s ESPY Awards.
Hill is a good candidate – she is of the same vein as former recipients Jim Valvano and Pat Summit, who also refused to let diagnoses of cancer slow their passion for basketball. The award is to be given to someone who transcends sports, and not always an athlete – Nelson Mandela is among the recipients.
But I have to agree with young Miss Wagner and the others, who see through this confusion of transcender and transgender, who see a politically correct marketing ploy at work ahead of a candidate who is way more deserving. Jenner will be the third horse in a trifecta of “courageous” winners, following openly gay NFL player Michael Sam, and longtime broadcaster Robin Roberts, a cancer survivor who came out as a lesbian the year she won the award.
Apparently, playing up to the moment you succumb while raising tons of money to help others doesn’t require as much courage as those three showed.
To be fair, Jenner should be rewarded for courage in one aspect – s/he has had to put up with the Kardashians and their hijinks as part of daily life.
Hill isn’t the only one derserving of consideration. Another social media favorite is Noah Galloway, an Iraq War veteran who lost an arm and part of a leg, but still competes – in “Dancing with the Stars,” where he came in third. He is also known as a distance runner and personal trainer.
Yeah, no courage there.
Wagner’s petition – find it online at www.change.org/p/espn-give-lauren-hill-the-arthur-ashe-courage-award – is one of several on the same topic hosted by the site, interspersed among several dueling petitions over whether the International Olympic Committee should or shouldn’t strip Jenner of the medals he won.
Take a moment and help these courageous petitioners send a message to the cowardly lion that is ESPN.
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Jeff Fishbein is sports editor of The Sentinel. Contact him at jfishbein@lewistownsentinel.com.