Or that he was stepping off a curb, minding his own business, when a Mack truck slammed him into a tree. Until Sunday, presumably, it was. Doubtless there's a degree of skill involved, which one might acknowledge. And daredevil, if not precisely courage. I do grasp that piece of the show, but I don't admire it.
Great guys die every day, but few position themselves so dangerously.
And almost none receive the kind of booming headlines and exhaustive media replay that Earnhardt got. Which may say far more about us than about him. By his death on Sunday, thrill and spectacle are diminished. But the great thing about gladiators, as we all learned from the movie, is that there's always another to replace the fallen. Soon enough some brave soul will invoke Earnhardt's memory as he revs his engine and grinds into the arena.