INTRODUCTION

While I was growing up back in the small town of Columbiaville, I always looked forward to Sunday afternoons during football season. On the way home from church my dad, Orrin Harvey Woodward, and his three boys would begin discussing whether Roger Staubach would lead the Dallas Cowboys to yet another win. My oldest brother and I usually rooted for the Cowboys while my younger brother and dad usually pulled for whoever was against Dallas. I remember staring intently at the T.V. screen as Roger Staubach (my hero) engineered another amazing comeback against the Washington Redskins. To a young boy of ten years of age there was nothing better than watching your hero pull off another miracle on the football field.

I began to read voraciously about many of the sports stars from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Reading about these great stars helped me form a desire to win, a drive to compete, and a willingness to face defeat in a quest for victory. I had no idea at the time what a positive influence all those sport biographies had on my mental makeup. Whenever my brothers and I would go out to play, I was always Roger Staubach when I was throwing, Tony Dorsett while running, Dr. J. (Julius Erving) when shooting a basketball, and Rod Carew when hitting a baseball. My dad and mom encouraged me to dream big dreams and to emulate my heroes. They believed in the American Dream of working hard and believing in oneself and that good guys can finish first.

In today’s society there is less talk of heroes to edify and emulate and more talk about the human frailties of anyone in a leadership position. While none of us are perfect and all of us have missed God’s mark of perfection, I think it is wrong to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Everyone needs to have heroes in their lives, people to look up to and who are admired because of their hard work and courage in overcoming obstacles.

The old Century Dictionary defines a hero as “a man (or woman) of distinguished valor, intrepidity, or enterprise in danger; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; one who exhibits extraordinary courage, firmness, fortitude, or intellectual greatness in the course of action.”

There are still plenty of heroes in America, but they are not being talked about and certainly not being lifted up as role models. I am amazed at how many American heroes I have met across this great nation who do a great job while toiling in relative obscurity. They don’t do heroic things so as to be written about or for recognition; they do heroic things because they believe it is the right thing to do. Let us look at how anti-hero doctrine has caused the decline of heroes in our culture and what can be done to recover the heroic culture that was essential in the foundation of our great country.