SPIRITUAL focus on books November 15, 2004 Issue

A man for all seasons

By Kim Shippey

Eight weeks ago, I was disturbed by newspaper accounts of a hazing incident at a high school in Sandwich, Massachusetts, during which over-zealous senior football players injured a freshman before the start of a team practice.

I had just finished reading Season of Life (Simon & Schuster, 2003) by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Marx, in which he chronicles the influence former National Football League star Joe Ehrmann (now an ordained minister) has over the members of Maryland's Gilman High School football team, for whom he is a volunteer coach. And I couldn't help thinking, "That Sandwich hazing incident might never have happened had Coach Ehrmann been in charge."

Ehrmann devotes much of his time to guiding young men to a whole new view of masculinity. He teaches the students at Gilman the precepts of his Building Men for Others program: Being a man means deepening relationships with others and having a cause bigger than yourself. It means accepting responsibility and having the courage to lead. It means that empathy, integrity, and living a life of service to others are more important than points on a scoreboard.

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