Doc to ESPYs: Lauren Hill's courage trumps Cait Jenner's

You'd hate to think that ESPN's decision to honor the newly minted Caitlyn Jenner with the ESPY's Arthur Ashe Courage Award was anything other than altruistic. Bruce becoming Caitlyn was a courageous act that will benefit all who face similar circumstances.

The fact that Jenner was instantly recognizable before her announcement last month didn't have anything to do with the sports network's decision to honor her, did it? Did it?

Jenner is tabloid manna. Jenner is ratings gold. People who never before watched the ESPYs – people who didn't know the ESPYs from ESP – now will tune in to perform the TV version of rubbernecking. On Wednesday, E! Entertainment released the first promo video for Caitlyn's upcoming reality show, "I Am Cait''.

A reality show, for Caitlyn Jenner? Ya don't say.

Meantime, Lauren Hill was a real-life reality show that E! Entertainment wouldn't have touched. There was nothing to Lauren worth gawking at. She wasn't a Kardashian, she didn't faux-survive in a bikini on a tropical island. She was not, thank god, a housewife of Beverly Hills. Reality television is to reality what botox is to real faces.

Lauren Hill was just a kid who died. She was just an earth angel, whose poise and selflessness provided everyone in America with a road map to grace. We didn't see her "applying make-up to her face'' as we will Caitlyn, according to a story on the website BusinessInsider.com.

We didn't see Lauren putting on lipstick and saying, "You start learning the pressure women are under all the time about their appearance," as Caitlyn says. We heard Lauren saying after a basketball game, "Today has been the best day I've ever had.''

A month or so before she died, Lauren said this:

"I ask God for a cure for cancer and that my family will be fine when and if I'm gone. They are who I worry about. My family and my friends.''

Quite possibly, that is more courageous than wondering if the black hose will go with the red dress. Caitlyn Jenner is courage personified. But not without a little bit of Hollywood narcissism.

Look, it's not that I don't admire the former Bruce Jenner. It isn't that I don't feel compassion for the new Caitlyn. All the best. What you've done has taken more guts than winning a decathlon, or appearing on TV with any number of self-absorbed, brain cell-starved Kardashians.

It's going to be a tough trail to blaze. Good luck.

Is it more courageous than what Lauren Hill did?

Let me be the first to answer that:

Not in a million lifetimes.

Ask yourself this: Would you rather know you were living a false life? Or that you'd be dead in a few months? Who gets the better end of that deal?

Jenner is free to change the world, perhaps for decades. Lauren had about a year and a half, from when she was first diagnosed.

Jenner has lived a full life: Olympic hero, endorsing machine, sex symbol, TV celebrity, Wheaties man. Lauren lived less than 20 years.

Lauren did what she did entirely without guile. She didn't seek a stage, except when she knew the stage would help others. She was just Lauren Hill from Lawrenceburg, IN, who loved her family and basketball and who suffered terrible physical pain in the hope that, someday, other kids wouldn't have to.

Bruce-turned-Caitlyn has lived a life of emotional pain, possibly made worse by Bruce's celebrity status. As ESPN's release notes, "(Caitlyn) has shown the courage to embrace a truth that had been hidden for years, and to embark on a journey that may not only give comfort to those facing similar circumstances, but can also help to educate people on the challenges that the transgender community faces."

And yet, Caitlyn made her announcement on national TV, in prime time. She will have a reality show – eight, one-hour segments – that will attract as many peepers as those legitimately concerned. Put it this way: TMZ wasn't interested in Lauren Hill.

Some of us see rare courage and heroism as something other than appearing on national television applying makeup. The attention paid would have made Lauren Hill blush.

Is this politically impolite? Maybe. It's certainly PC for ESPN to jump on the CaitlynWagon and cheer. It's certainly easier to honor someone the world recognizes. It's no leap of ratings faith to declare Caitlyn Jenner more worthy of a courage trophy than Lauren Hill.

That doesn't make it right. Not at all.

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