Any discussion about what it takes to transform boys into men should always include a consideration of the lessons used by great coaches to train boys and young men on how to be winners. Although I am not an avid fan of professional sports, I am a fan of the late Vince Lombardi who some claim was the greatest football coach of all time. Before I talk about what Lombardi himself called “Lombardi Time,” I want to give you a brief summary of his life as a coach.
Do you know the name of the first grocery store in Peoria that had scanners at checkout lanes, instead of cash registers where everything had to be rung up one at a time by hand? I know the name of the store because I worked there when I was in high school. The store was Randall’s Foods and it was located in the Westlake Shopping Center, across the street from Northwoods’ Mall.
About 15 years ago, I purchased a tape set that consisted of recordings of 4 different talks that were given by a Catholic priest on the topic of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. During one of the talks, the priest explained a theory that he had heard from his brother-in-law about the different tendencies men and women are born with. His brother-in-law was a psychiatrist and a devout Catholic who had been counseling married couples for over 25 years.
A few months ago in an article entitled Ambushed By My Cousin, I told you about how I promised a cousin of mine that I would write about what I thought parents should be doing to raise their boys into decent, honorable, and respectable Catholic men. In the Ambushed article, I talked about the men on both sides of my parents’ families – the Williams men and the LaHood men.
Last week, after I published my article on The Two Greatest Desires, I happened to run into one of my cousins. When I saw her walking toward me, I noticed the expression on her face. It was one of those determined looks, a look that alerted me that she was about to give me a lecture. How was it that was I able to read the look on her face? She raised her family in the same neighborhood I grew up in, and during that time I had several opportunities to see the same look on her face immediately prior to her delivering a lecture to me or someone else in the neighborhood.