INTRODUCTIONWhile 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.ANTI-HERODOCTRINEThe anti-hero doctrine constitutes a denial of the value and purpose of human life, which sets us adrift in an existence without meaning or hope. Anti-hero philosophies have been a mixture of scientific error, prideful deceit, and rebellion against God. George Roche in his excellent book, "A World without Heroes" said:"The anti-heroic dismisses all purpose as illusion. It sees us as helpless pawns, unable to act or even think on our own, fully shaped and determined by outside forces. It reaches this position with tortuous chains of inference, with misused 'scientific assumptions' and fanciful formulas that dare to tell us what we can and cannot know, what is and is not real. But all this is contrivance, serving not the search for knowledge and truth, but the rebel's own dark purposes. And it is all belied in an instant by that one purposeful, death-defying act or a hero. That act, a reality known to us all, tells us more about the human condition than all of the empty and life-hating mutterings of modernist philosophers. It serves a Good we all may turn to for fulfillment in our lives." Author Marc Simmons, addressing the Western Writers of America, reached this conclusion about the group's anti-hero critics: "You see they must discredit the Western hero because if just one person can be shown to have achieved wholeness, then it becomes evident that the possibility is open to all." I believe that there are four areas where anti-hero doctrine has made major inroads: Education Business – The Free Enterprise System Our National Beliefs Our View of Individual Achievement EDUCATIONThe first big breakthrough for anti-hero doctrine was the idea of value-free education. There is no such thing as value free education! Education is the preservation, refinement and transmission of values from one generation to the next. Let me quote again from educator George Roche: "Where anti-heroism pretends to be value-free, education is value-laden, and, in the end concerns nothing but our higher nature and moral purpose. Education seeks truth; anti-heroism denies its existence. Education seeks meaning in human life, justice in human affairs, dignity in human aspirations; anti-heroes deny all human purpose save evolutionary survival." The only real question regarding education, then, is whose values do we teach? Either hero or anti-hero values will be taught in our schools, and at the present time, anti-hero doctrine is winning. The anti-hero doctrine is egalitarian by nature. Gary Hull Ph.D. defined egalitarian as: "An egalitarian wants equality, not under law, but in all practical consequences: equality of income, of praise and blame, of rewards and punishments. He derides, as elitist and individualistic, all rankings, evaluations, and competitions." Richard Rodzinski, executive director of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition said: "We must stamp out the concept of 'better.' It should always be understood that we're not saying number one is better than number two." Mr. Rodzinski is like many egalitarians who are so worried about kids developing inferiority complexes that they refuse to keep score. Henry Link, a well known 1930's and 1940's self development psychologist, in his book, "The Rediscovery of Man" said: "A sense of inferiority, we find is not a disease. I have told hundreds of complaining parents: 'You should be thankful that your child has a sense of inferiority. The children to worry about are those who always think they are smart, who know better than their elders, who see no reason for painful practice or humble effort. The child, however, who feels inferior, can usually be trained to develop abilities which in time will make him truly superior. All genuine superiority grows out of a sense of inferiority. The person, who admits his inferiority and then does something about it, develops superiority.'" A great modern day example of this is Michael Jordan, who was not only cut from the varsity team as a sophomore, but lost to his older brother Larry in their one-on-one basketball wars in the backyard. Michael said it was losing to his brother consistently that helped him to develop his incredible drive to win. Schools need to teach that there is a difference between high achievement and lackluster results based upon the effort put forth. If we want our children to improve, then parents, teachers, and coaches should teach them self-discipline. Our children must be taught that the only way to tell if you are improving is to keep score. Gary Hull said: "The egalitarian's hatred of excellence has metastasized throughout the culture. In order to level everyone down to the lowest common denominator, egalitarians sacrifice the achiever. Nowhere is this more dramatic – and tragic – than in education. High Schools on both coasts are dispensing with award honoring to seniors. They don't select 'the most likely to succeed' or the 'most talented.' These schools no longer offer class ranking, nor do they select a class valedictorian. In today's age of achievement-hatred, it is okay to spend millions on playground psychopaths. But it is considered morally low to honor a bright student. If you have ever wondered why the number of great artists, intellects, and achievers has dwindled you should blame egalitarianism." Our Education system has decided not to recognize the budding heroes; therefore it does not develop the drive in students to become heroes. This must change!