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Today I’m a little sad as it would have been Pat Tillman’s 37th birthday.  Pretty much everyone knows who Pat Tillman is by now.  If not, he was a professional football player who gave up a promising NFL career to join his brother in the Army Rangers after the September 11th terrorist attacks. After several tours in Afghanistan, Pat was killed by friendly fire.  I remember sitting in a bar in Lexington, KY drunk off my ass when I heard of his passing.  Needless to say, it was a sobering moment.  Unfortunately the circumstances of his death were distorted by the US government.  It’s a shame that somebody that gave all was so disrespected by his own country.  While I didn’t personally know Pat, I knew of him long before he became a national hero.  Anybody that paid attention to ASU football in the mid 90’s knew from the first time they saw Pat how special he was.  He received the last scholarship ASU offered in 1994 and turned that into a stellar college career. His persona was polarizing and he was somebody that succeeded beyond everyone else’s expectations of him.  He was an undersized college linebacker and managed to become an overachieving NFL safety. The remarkable thing about Pat is if you ever hear anybody that ever knew him or met him talk about him, Pat the person is always mention before Pat the football player or Pat the soldier.  He was just a good guy. It’s sad to think that somebody like that was taken because I have no doubt that Pat would have gone on to do remarkable things regardless of whether he played football or not.  So happy birthday Pat, the world is a better place for having known you.