It occurs to me that Pat Tillman didn't really die. Not really.
He's no longer living, yes. But he's become more than just a football player, more than just a soldier. He's an idea. I won't say "ideal" though, because from what people who knew him tell me, he'd hate that. Tillman wasn't a saint, he wasn't a superhero, he was a guy. Just like you, just like me.
And maybe that's why Pat's Run and the Tillman Foundation have become so big.
"People are drawn to stories of sacrifice and selflessness," Tillman's ASU teammate Juan Roque said. "In a selfish world where it's all about me, me, me and me, Pat's story is one of unselfishness."
Tillman walked away from the golden ticket. An NFL contract that most likely would have paid him enough money to never have to work again. In the end, he turned down the superhuman lie for one that you and I could understand, maybe even achieve if we worked hard enough. Of course, even then he became an Army Ranger…never settle.
"He was someone who could be counted on to do the right thing when it mattered most," his teammate Michael Barnes said. "Something we all say we want to do, he just had the courage to actually put his words into action."
And to honor Tillman is to be honest about him. He didn't die in a blaze of glory. He died by friendly fire, in an incident that was a horrible mistake. There was controversy over his death and the circumstances surrounding it. That could have been any soldier.
"When he died it opened the country's eyes as to what a true hero is," Roque said. "Regardless of the circumstances regarding his death it's undeniable that Pat Tillman's story is one of sacrifice, humility and doing your part for the greater good."
Perry Edinger started Pat's Run 11 years ago. He was the head athletic trainer for Tillman's team at ASU. When he started an event to honor Tillman, he said it was with the intention that it would be popular.
"I really did hoped it would be," Edinger said. "I hoped it would have 15,000 people and people would come back year after year and do it. I never imagined 28,000."
Pat's Run is now maxed out. 28,000 people is as large as it will ever, and can ever, get. Twenty-eight thousand people inspired to run, not because it's a competition, not because you get glory at the end, but because of one man.
"It's about him and the things he stood for. You don't find people that give up things like he did," Edinger said. "You don't find people with the integrity that he had."
The story is compelling. A college athlete goes to the NFL, then turns down millions of dollars to enlist in the military. But I think what makes Pat Tillman's story into a legend is who he was to begin with.
He was all of us, and none of us. He took what he had, and he ran with it.