Mike Celizic

It may be unfair to take points off an athlete’s transcript because he never won a title in a team sport, but we and the athletes all know that’s the way it is. Great players perform their greatest deeds in the biggest games.

It’s been that way since the beginning of time. Hercules didn’t become a legend by failing to finish his labors. Homer didn’t write an epic about Ulysses because he didn’t make it home. Caesar didn’t get to be emperor by losing to the Gauls.

In the old days, the heroes were warriors. Today, they’re athletes, but the challenge is the same — to be the guy who saves the day in hand-to-hand combat.

When our modern heroes come through, we are all made richer by an experience that may mean as much to fans as it does to the players themselves. When a hero wins, we all share in a victory that lasts across generations.

This is why it felt so good last Sunday when Peyton Manning shrugged the demon off his shoulders and led the Colts to victory over Tom Brady and an appointment in Super Bowl XLI with the Chicago Bears. The man who has been the NFL’s answer to Alex Rodriguez finally got to the game’s biggest stage. And he did by beating Brady, the quarterback who — we had come to believe — was incapable of losing.

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He hasn’t won the Super Bowl yet, but at least Manning has gotten there, something he’d never been able to do in the past. And if you didn’t feel good for him when he won, you’re missing something. He’s a decent and likeable guy, a man who, with his brother Eli, chartered a plane after Katrina devastated New Orleans and filled it with relief supplies for the survivors. He’s never showed up on a police blotter, never makes Whine of the Week, never makes negative headlines.

Even if you found yourself taking pot shots at him in other years for coming up small in big situations, you still understood that he’s one of the good guys. And just because the game doesn’t care if a player is a saint or the devil himself, doesn’t mean that you have to feel the same way.

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There are a lot of good guys who never get a shot. Ernie Banks was as nice as guys come, and he spent his life in last place. The same goes for Ralph Kiner. And Gayle Sayers. And Steve Largent.

Sport, like art, doesn’t always imitate life. In life, no one wins all the time, and no one loses all the time. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Some win more often, but no one gets through this world without tasting defeat.