Years ago, when player behavior was only bad and not yet Bad, I said these words, “If I had a son, and we were watching football on a Sunday afternoon, I’d be constantly saying, ‘Please, I beg you, never, ever, behave like this…’”
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We are all formed by our timing. My father was born in 1929, in a different America. Most Americans were rural and poor. Their childhoods might have been barefoot simple, but America raised a crop of babies of uncommon character.
These Greatest Generation men (and their fathers) were my role models for being an American Man. If you want it, work for it. There are no shortcuts. Don’t sell your self-respect. Never be a squeaky wheel, never toot your own horn. Never let your name down. Be strong enough to stand alone, be strong enough to lay your life down for a greater cause.
These men were my early coaches in sports. It was always Team, Team, Team, because they believed in the power of the group. Anybody got the Big Head, the coach chewed some ass, and let them park what was left of their own on the pine.
They raised us to respect authority, to be dignified in defeat, modest in victory.
For many decades of my life, when I watched professional sports on TV, I was watching American men behaving like American men. It wasn’t exceptional, because the quality was so wide and so deep that it was the norm.
My early heroes were Bill Russell, Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. They might play well, they might play bad, but they never shamed themselves with bad behavior.
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Each year it gets harder and harder for me to watch professional football. The athletes are superior, the game more sophisticated, just what teenage me would’ve hoped, but the behavior is astonishingly inferior. Who are these American boy/men? Who raised them? How did we get here…from where we were, just the other decade or so?
All their little look-at-me’s, every first down is a posing moment, every tackle has someone going off away, hoping the camera follows, desperate to make the halftime highlights…
…needy…that’s all I see… What did you not get, in your raising, that makes you behave this way? Where was the village that was supposed to raise you, that you arrive in adulthood literally ignorant that you’re standing before an audience of millions, telling them that your parents raised a needy child?
It’s like watching someone pick their nose. And hoping a camera catches them do it!
How, I ask myself, did we get here, from where we were just the day before yesterday in the history of America?
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And Then There Is Peyton Manning
If I had a son I’d tell him, “Look at Peyton. America used to be full of people like that.” Peyton is timeless. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, my grandfather, my father, they wouldn’t understand football, but they’d all understand Peyton. They’d understand the work ethic. They’d respect the discipline. But mostly, what they’d respect is the character. America had Peytons at Valley Forge, America had Peytons on Omaha Beach.
There is a father behind Peyton Manning. His name is Archie. People think he’s a Golden Boy. We all know the power of being the Big Man On Campus, especially in the football crazy South. Good at all sports, Archie is drafted multiple times by professional baseball teams, but accepts a scholarship to play football at Ole Miss.
There is a father behind Archie Manning. His name is Buddy. When Archie is a college sophomore, just landed the starting QB position, he goes home for a wedding. His father makes excuses not to attend. It’s Archie that finds his daddy, a hot barrel shotgun and pieces of daddy splatter, dead of suicide. He offers to drop out of school to support the family.
Archie is the stuff of legends. He marries the Homecoming Queen, almost wins the Heisman Trophy, is legendary for being the Best Player on the Worst Teams…
…but I leave all that aside, to focus on one thing; Archie Manning raised quality sons. One of them is Peyton. It’s not easy to raise a kid. Add money, add fame, add talent, it just makes it harder. Archie Manning was a great quarterback, but I submit it to you, I think he’s a better daddy. He turned little boys into solid American men.
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This story isn’t about football. It’s about Americans, and which way we’re going, and what we’re doing with our values. Families make America, one kid at a time. If we raise hard working kids we get a hard working America. If we raise respectful kids we get an orderly America.
When I talk about The Greatest Generation I’m not talking ancient history here. Most of us were raised by them. So how, in 2, 3 generations, did we go from Way Up There to Way Down Here?
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And now, we’ve got Peyton Manning for one more game.
I don’t have anything against the other team. They just don’t have Peyton. We all know it’s his last game. We all know he’s broke down and held together with screws and bone glue. We want a glorious end, but we’d settle for a steady game…what we secretly fear is that he’ll be exposed, representing us all, you-should-have-seen-us-in-our-prime, but nobody cares about our used-to-be…
…which is something we might need to be thinking about for America… Thirty years ago there was Peyton quality on every team, in every sport: now I’m talking about him like he’s the Last Of The Mohicans. Anybody out there raising up more Peytons? Or is this it?
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we think everybody’s first coach is their parents.
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories can be found on the Eighty-one Facebook page. He can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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