By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

In the euphoria that followed the University of Hawai'i football team's remarkable comeback to beat Southern Methodist, 38-31, in Dallas last October, the Warriors' quarterback began to praise two teammates who most helped turn the tide.

Nick Rolovich seemed poised to anoint defensive end Travis Laboy and running back Thero Mitchell as the team's heroes for a day when he paused suddenly, as if catching himself. Upon reflection, Rolovich chose to call them "MVPs."

Theirs were resolute performances to be sure in a rousing victory that helped turn around the course of a season for the Warriors, who had begun 1-2 and would go on to win eight of their last nine games to finish 9-3. Most seasons and most places, "hero" would have been an automatic choice.

But, coming as it did less than a month after the tragic events of Sept. 11, there had come a reassessment and change, even in the locker rooms.

Athletes and sportswriters, who had liberally applied "hero" now viewed the designation in a whole new context, given the sacrifices of the rescue workers at the World Trade Center, the courage of the passengers and crew on the Washington, D.C.-bound plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania countryside and the military jumping into harm's way.

"Courageous" suddenly meant more than just leading a successful two-minute offense in front of a hostile crowd.

To be sure, the lexicon of sports underwent sudden change. Words such as "battle" were left to describe events in far-off places like Kandahar instead of the Superdome. "War" referred to something more consequential than what took place on the line of scrimmage.

No longer in football were terms such as "long bombs" "war room" and "killer defense" used quite so casually, if at all.

Words and phrases long borrowed or contorted to describe the world of fun and games went back to the terrible events that they had been coined for. Because we had been spared tragedies that surrounded them, we had come to lose sight of their meanings, the depth they connoted.

Now that the pain and suffering had come home again, suddenly and tragically, and so too had the intended definitions.

"Twin Towers," which had once been the nickname of San Antonio's David Robinson and Tim Duncan, faded away.

When Florida State coach Bobby Bowden last month began to adopt the rallying cry of "Let's roll!" used by the passengers and crew of Flight 93 for his football team, it caused a wave of criticism, until its usage was endorsed by the victims' families.

A year after Sept. 11, 2001, we still have a place and need for our sports and their stars. We relish their on-field deeds. Now, perhaps, more than ever we need the thrills and diversions they provide. We still cheer their triumphs and agonize in their defeats.

But we've also come to celebrate them more as they really are, as performers and stars in their arenas. We understand their contests for what they are, too — games not real life-or-death events.

For a while, at least, we're leaving the designation of "hero" where it belongs.