Mark Moore was my hero. He was a regular old-school fireman, back before the spectacular heroism of 9-11. So it wasn't the fact of his profession that elevated him in my eyes. No, it was simply that he was the only man in my nine-year-old world who understood me. He was my next door neighbor. He lived close enough to hear my father's drunken rages and my mother's crying. He saw the car parked on grass in the front yard where my dad had left it the night before. He observed the sad lack of maintenance on our house, and he witnessed the many times I went running from the house in tears. Mark knew the horror of my world and still, for his own reasons, he picked me and gave me the only positive adult male attention I knew in those days.


Mark taught me to fish. I remember the awe I felt the first time he showed me his tackle box. It was the most mysterious collection of tools for getting the meat I had ever seen. The lures were colorful, each with a name and a special use. And dam that box was fragrant. I didn't learn until much later the otherworldly smell was a collection of thirty years' worth of mixed beer and dried fish guts.

Mark found the time to do things with me and sometimes a couple of my boy-pack buddies. We would visit him and the other men at the firehouse and got to slide down the brass pole from the second floor dorm. We'd build things together too. I can still smell the sawdust from the footstool we constructed in his garage workshop one hot summer. Then there was the time he took us all up to the top of the Highland Water Tower on the one day of the year it was open. The tower was the highest point in our town at the time and it offered an expansive vista. One at a time, he lifted each of us up to peer over the safety rail and then he pointed out the important places in our neighborhood. He said, �There�s your house, and there�s the movie theater. Over there is where you go to school, and way out there is the fairgrounds.� In a way, Mark was doing for me what men have done with boys for centuries, seeing their gifts, choosing to be engaged, and lifting them up and showing them the important parts of the masculine landscape. My dad wasn't really present for me, I had Superman on television back in those days, but Mark was my real superhero. I was a horribly lost little boy who became a lost teen, and it was Mark who saved my life.

The other sad truth about manhood is about lost men. Men and manhood have taken it in the chops from bad wars, feminism, and brutal economic times. Manhood is constantly under assault in today's media. A recent article in my hometown newspaper titled, Men Behaving Sadly, points out this coming season of TV shows feature, �. . . more than a half a dozen male characters questioning their masculinity and their place in a �woman�s world.�� Men's institutions have been invaded, and even men's natural tendencies have come under incitement. Collectively, these and other forces have had a devastating impact on male esteem. The result is lost and confused men, collectively and globally, looking for a vision of manhood that will help men feel good about themselves and reshape the important parts of the masculine landscape.

Making men out of adolescent males is men's work. It's necessary and life-saving for the boys, it supports families, and it reduces the chaos and violence in our communities. The big secret is until men put this piece in place, men are not whole. Conversely, when men claim that core piece of the manhood puzzle, the male hierarchy is restored, boys see an achievable path to manhood, there is peace in the village, and men inhabit their right place in the order of things.

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." - Fredrick Douglass

A Man Seeks Redemption

�Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle he does not lose himself. This game is not over, this battle is not over.� � Coach Eric Taylor

The theme of redemption was woven throughout each season. Several of the characters fell on hard times because of their own choices and because of just plain bad luck. My favorite example of a man redeeming himself is slick-talking car salesman and booster president, Buddy Garrity. When the show first started, I couldn�t stand Buddy Garrity. He was just a sleaze ball. He was a drunk, he cheated on his wife, and spent his daughter�s college education fund in a bad business deal. Buddy also had a tendency to sow the seeds of dissension on the team and cause Coach Taylor unneeded headaches. You could tell he did it purely for the power trip. People like that really bother me.

I�ll admit I was happy to see Buddy get his comeuppance when he lost his business, his family, and his cherished role as president of the Dillon Panthers booster club. It�s always nice to see cosmic justice in action.

But then something happened. Buddy Garrity quickly went from being my least favorite character on FNL to one my favorites. Why the change? Because Buddy sought for redemption.

Buddy used his personal crucible as an opportunity to become a better man. Ousted from his beloved Panthers, Buddy swallows his pride and becomes a big booster for a rival of his high school alma mater, the East Dillon Lions. He opens up another business in the poorer East Dillon side of town and quickly becomes a part of the community. He takes in a former juvenile delinquent named Santiago and becomes sort of a father figure to him. And in the last season we get to see Buddy repair his relationship with his estranged son, Buddy, Jr. Finally, at Tim Riggins� parole hearing, he stands up for a young man he had respected as a football player but detested as his daughter�s boyfriend and offers him a job at his restaurant, and his own shot at getting back on his feet.

There are such things as second acts in life. Buddy Garrity is a perfect example of that. If you�ve screwed up in life, humble yourself, and fight like the dickens to make things right.

A Man�s Closest Ally Is His Wife

While on the surface Friday Night Lights was a show about football, the heart of the show was truly the relationship between Eric and Tami Taylor. It�s by far the most realistic depiction of a good marriage I�ve ever seen on TV. Most TV shows depict marriages in which the husband is suffocated and henpecked by the wife, or ones in which each of the partners is forever on the verge of an affair or the couple is sliding towards divorce. Instead, the Taylors looked like most married couples I know�solid, happy, and committed. They were confronted not with the over-the-top drama typically depicted on the small screen, but with the everyday struggles that strain most marriages, like balancing work and family, handling an unruly teenager, or just figuring out who�s cooking dinner.

Perhaps the biggest conflict between Eric and Tami was balancing their respective career aspirations. Eric wanted to coach football. That was his calling in life. And for most of their marriage, Tami supported her husband�s dream by moving from job to job. Without her support, Coach Taylor could not have been as successful as he was. But when Tami�s career in education starts to take off, her personal goals quickly become incompatible with her husband�s. Cue the marital tension, and the eventual self-sacrificing compromise.

Despite their relationship conflicts, Tami and Eric were committed to their marriage. They were always able to resolve their problems with love and respect.

Eric understood that a man�s closest ally and adviser is his wife. When he had a problem with the team, he�d often ask Tami for her input while they were laying in bed right before they fell asleep. (Kate and I have those same kinds of bedtime conversations. I�m sure most married couples do too.) He understood the power of a marriage mastermind. He saw his wife not as his inferior or superior, but as an equal companion that was there to help him become the best man he could be.

Thank you to those of you who mentor our young men.

From Courage, 1894
By Charles Wagner

Steadfastness is the indispensable quality of every man who one day does not wish to be obliged to say: �I have wasted my life.�

A man should not incessantly change with every impression of the moment, but should remain steadfast when he has once determined upon what is right. Of what use are the flowers if they do not produce fruits, and of good ideas if they are not transmuted into deeds? We must encourage stability, habituate ourselves to remain constant, and when we are sure that we are right, must fortify ourselves against invasion. Do not let criticisms or attacks disturb you.

Nothing is so difficult as to remain faithful. At each step of the way outside influences are brought to bear upon us to make us deviate or retrograde. And if there were only difficulties from without, it would not matter so much; but there are those from within. Our dispositions vacillate. We promise one thing with the best intentions in the world; but when the time comes to keep it, everything is changed�the circumstances, men, ourselves; and what duty demands of us seems so different from what we had foreseen, that we hesitate. Those who will fulfill on a rainy day a promise which they have made on a sunny one, are few and far between.

And so we go on casting our hearts to the four winds, giving it and taking it back again, breaking with our past, separating ourselves from ourselves, so to speak. And when we look behind, we no longer recognize ourselves. We see ourselves in the days that are past as a stranger, or rather as several strangers.

There is nothing like a steadfast man, one in whom you can have confidence, one who is found at his post, who arrives punctually, and who can be trusted when you rely on him. He is worth his weight in gold. You can take your bearings from him, because he is sure to be where he ought to be, and nowhere else. The majority of individuals, on the contrary, are sure to be anywhere but where they ought to be. You have only to take them into your calculations to be deceived. Some of them are changeable from weakness of character; they cannot resist attacks, insinuations, and, above all, cannot remain faithful to a lost cause. A defeat in their eyes is a demonstration of the fact that their adversary was right and that they were wrong. When they see their side fail, instead of closing up the ranks, they go over to the enemy. These are the men who are always found on the winning side, and not in their hearts would be found the courageous device: Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

A profound duplicity, a discrepancy between words and deeds, between appearance and reality, a sort of moral dilettantism which makes us according to the hour sincere or hypocritical, brave or cowardly, honest or unscrupulous�this is the disease which consumes us. What moral force can germinate and grow under these conditions? We must again become men who have only one principle, one word, one work, one love; in a word, men with a sense of duty. This is the source of power. And without this there is only the phantom of a man, the unstable sand, and hollow reed which bends beneath every breath. Be faithful; this is the changeless northern star which will guide you through the vicissitudes of life, through doubts and discouragements, and even mistakes.

I observe, gentlemen, that when I would lead you on a new venture you no longer follow me with your old spirit. I have asked you to meet me that we may come to a decision together: are we, upon my advice, to go forward, or, upon yours, to turn back?

If you have any complaint to make about the results of your efforts hitherto, or about myself as your commander, there is no more to say. But let me remind you: through your courage and endurance you have gained possession of Ionia, the Hellespont, both Phrygias, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, and Egypt; the Greek part of Libya is now yours, together with much of Arabia, lowland Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Susia; Persia and Media with all the territories either formerly controlled by them or not are in your hands; you have made yourselves masters of the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, beyond the Caucasus, beyond the Tanais, of Bactria, Hyrcania, and the Hyrcanian sea; we have driven the Scythians back into the desert; and Indus and Hydaspes, Acesines and Hydraotes flow now through country which is ours. With all that accomplished, why do you hesitate to extend the power of Macedon�yourpower�to the Hyphasis and the tribes on the other side ? Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run�or leave their country undefended for your taking; and when we take it, we make a present of it to those who have joined us of their own free will and fight on our side.

For a man who is a man, work, in my belief, if it is directed to noble ends, has no object beyond itself; none the less, if any of you wish to know what limit may be set to this particular camapaign, let me tell you that the area of country still ahead of us, from here to the Ganges and the Eastern ocean, is comparatively small. You will undoubtedly find that this ocean is connected with the Hyrcanian Sea, for the great Stream of Ocean encircles the earth. Moreover I shall prove to you, my friends, that the Indian and Persian Gulfs and the Hyrcanian Sea are all three connected and continuous. Our ships will sail round from the Persian Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Hercules, whence all Libya to the eastward will soon be ours, and all Asia too, and to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself has made for the whole world.

But if you turn back now, there will remain unconquered many warlike peoples between the Hyphasis and the Eastern Ocean, and many more to the northward and the Hyrcanian Sea, with the Scythians, too, not far away; so that if we withdraw now there is a danger that the territory which we do not yet securely hold may be stirred to revolt by some nation or other we have not yet forced into submission. Should that happen, all that we have done and suffered will have proved fruitless�or we shall be faced with the task of doing it over again from the beginning. Gentlemen of Macedon, and you, my friends and allies, this must not be. Stand firm; for well you know that hardship and danger are the price of glory, and that sweet is the savour of a life of courage and of deathless renown beyond the grave.

Are you not aware that if Heracles, my ancestor, had gone no further than Tiryns or Argos�or even than the Peloponnese or Thebes�he could never have won the glory which changed him from a man into a god, actual or apparent? Even Dionysus, who is a god indeed, in a sense beyond what is applicable to Heracles, faced not a few laborious tasks; yet we have done more: we have passed beyond Nysa and we have taken the rock of Aornos which Heracles himself could not take. Come, then; add the rest of Asia to what you already possess�a small addition to the great sum of your conquests. What great or noble work could we ourselves have achieved had we thought it enough, living at ease in Macedon, merely to guard our homes, accepting no burden beyond checking the encroachment of the Thracians on our borders, or the Illyrians and Triballians, or perhaps such Greeks as might prove a menace to our comfort ?

I could not have blamed you for being the first to lose heart if I, your commander, had not shared in your exhausting marches and your perilous campaigns; it would have been natural enough if you had done all the work merely for others to reap the reward. But it is not so. You and I, gentlemen, have shared the labour and shared the danger, and the rewards are for us all. The conquered territory belongs to you; from your ranks the governors of it are chosen; already the greater part of its treasure passes into your hands, and when all Asia is overrun, then indeed I will go further than the mere satisfaction of our ambitions: the utmost hopes of riches or power which each one of you cherishes will be far surpassed, and whoever wishes to return home will be allowed to go, either with me or without me. I will make those who stay the envy of those who return.