Here's a number worth sitting with. According to a RAND study published last year, one in three boys and young men in America has no adult male he can turn to for help with relationships or planning his future.
One in three.
If you're reading this, there's a decent chance you beat those odds. Not just because of your dad but because of someone else. A man who looked at you, a kid who wasn't his responsibility, and decided to step up.
That's what this week is about.
Father's Day gets the biology right. It honors the men who were supposed to show up. But there's another category to whom we must tip the hat — the men who had no obligation, no blood claim, no institutional requirement. They just saw something in you and decided you were worth their time.
Those are the men I keep thinking about this week.
The One Who Took the Chance
My first job in television was anchoring the morning news in Greenville, Mississippi. I was young. I had no real world experience, definitely not on an anchor desk. But a general manager named David Cavileer looked at my tape and took the swing anyway.
David was the kind of man who made you feel like the room got warmer when he walked in. Working for him felt like someone actually wanted you there — which, when you're starting out, is not something you should take for granted.
Early in my time there, I ran into a conflict with my direct boss. The kind of friction that can derail a young career if you handle it wrong. David called me into his office. I thought I was in trouble.
He didn't say a word. He just hit play on a clip from Cool Hand Luke. The warden's voice filled the room: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."
Then he turned to me and said something I've carried for thirty years: sometimes it's the employee's job to manage up. Open the door. Start the conversation. Don't wait for your boss to fix what you can fix yourself.
That was it. Meeting over.
I've used that lesson in every job I've had since. All because a GM in Greenville, Mississippi took ten minutes out of his day to show a young anchor how the world actually works.
David passed away this week. I didn't get to tell him what that room meant to me. I'm telling you instead.
The One Who Did the Work
Brother Noel was 6'7". That's the first thing anyone told you about him. You'd hear him coming down the hall before you saw him. His voice boomed — I could swear the building shook.
He was a Catholic Brother at the all-boys school where I went to high school. He had no reason to notice me. I was one of hundreds of kids moving through those halls. But he did notice, and he didn't look away.
I was a lost young man in ways I didn't have the language for yet. Bro Noel had the language — or he went and got it. Somewhere in there, this giant of a man started watching Logo TV. On his own. No one asked him to. He just decided that if he was going to understand the kid he'd taken under his wing, he was going to do the homework.
That's not pastoral duty. That's love.
We stayed close for decades — long past graduation, long past the time any reasonable person would say his job was done. He wrote me letters. He sent emails. He signed them Your bigger brother Noel.
When he died, he left instructions. He wanted me to deliver his eulogy.
I've been trusted with a lot of things in my life. Nothing has meant more than that.
The Numbers Behind the Feeling
This isn't just sentiment. The research is pretty clear on what happens when these guys show up... and what happens when they don't.
Boys without male mentors are more likely to be suspended, drop out of high school, and disconnect from education and employment entirely. The gap in well-being between young men and young women has been widening, and the shortage of male guidance figures is part of the story.
On the flip side, 84% of CEOs credit a mentor with helping them avoid costly mistakes. Mentorship boosts career earnings, increases confidence, and helps bridge socioeconomic gaps. And there's a detail that lands differently when you think about David or Bro Noel: 89% of people who were mentored go on to become mentors themselves.
The guy who took ten minutes with you didn't just change you. He changed everyone you'll eventually take ten minutes for.
The Guys You Carry
Every man I know has at least one of these. The coach who told you the truth when no one else would. The uncle who talked to you like an adult before you'd earned it. The boss who gave you the shot that changed everything. The teacher who saw the potential before you did.
None of them had to. That's the whole point.
Your dad — if you had a good one — operated inside a bond that culture, biology, and expectation built for him. These other guys operated outside all of that. They chose you from scratch. And whether they knew it or not, they built something in you that you're still using.
This Sunday, take sixty seconds and think about who those guys were for you.
And if one of them is still alive, tell them.
Don't wait for a eulogy to say it.
The Guys Who Didn't Have To
Here's a number worth sitting with. According to a RAND study published last year, one in three boys and young men in America has no adult male he can turn to for help with relationships or planning his future.
One in three.
If you're reading this, there's a decent chance you beat those odds. Not just because of your dad but because of someone else. A man who looked at you, a kid who wasn't his responsibility, and decided to step up.
That's what this week is about.
Father's Day gets the biology right. It honors the men who were supposed to show up. But there's another category to whom we must tip the hat — the men who had no obligation, no blood claim, no institutional requirement. They just saw something in you and decided you were worth their time.
Those are the men I keep thinking about this week.
The One Who Took the Chance
My first job in television was anchoring the morning news in Greenville, Mississippi. I was young. I had no real world experience, definitely not on an anchor desk. But a general manager named David Cavileer looked at my tape and took the swing anyway.
David was the kind of man who made you feel like the room got warmer when he walked in. Working for him felt like someone actually wanted you there — which, when you're starting out, is not something you should take for granted.
Early in my time there, I ran into a conflict with my direct boss. The kind of friction that can derail a young career if you handle it wrong. David called me into his office. I thought I was in trouble.
He didn't say a word. He just hit play on a clip from Cool Hand Luke. The warden's voice filled the room: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."
Then he turned to me and said something I've carried for thirty years: sometimes it's the employee's job to manage up. Open the door. Start the conversation. Don't wait for your boss to fix what you can fix yourself.
That was it. Meeting over.
I've used that lesson in every job I've had since. All because a GM in Greenville, Mississippi took ten minutes out of his day to show a young anchor how the world actually works.
David passed away this week. I didn't get to tell him what that room meant to me. I'm telling you instead.
The One Who Did the Work
Brother Noel was 6'7". That's the first thing anyone told you about him. You'd hear him coming down the hall before you saw him. His voice boomed — I could swear the building shook.
He was a Catholic Brother at the all-boys school where I went to high school. He had no reason to notice me. I was one of hundreds of kids moving through those halls. But he did notice, and he didn't look away.
I was a lost young man in ways I didn't have the language for yet. Bro Noel had the language — or he went and got it. Somewhere in there, this giant of a man started watching Logo TV. On his own. No one asked him to. He just decided that if he was going to understand the kid he'd taken under his wing, he was going to do the homework.
That's not pastoral duty. That's love.
We stayed close for decades — long past graduation, long past the time any reasonable person would say his job was done. He wrote me letters. He sent emails. He signed them Your bigger brother Noel.
When he died, he left instructions. He wanted me to deliver his eulogy.
I've been trusted with a lot of things in my life. Nothing has meant more than that.
The Numbers Behind the Feeling
This isn't just sentiment. The research is pretty clear on what happens when these guys show up... and what happens when they don't.
Boys without male mentors are more likely to be suspended, drop out of high school, and disconnect from education and employment entirely. The gap in well-being between young men and young women has been widening, and the shortage of male guidance figures is part of the story.
On the flip side, 84% of CEOs credit a mentor with helping them avoid costly mistakes. Mentorship boosts career earnings, increases confidence, and helps bridge socioeconomic gaps. And there's a detail that lands differently when you think about David or Bro Noel: 89% of people who were mentored go on to become mentors themselves.
The guy who took ten minutes with you didn't just change you. He changed everyone you'll eventually take ten minutes for.
The Guys You Carry
Every man I know has at least one of these. The coach who told you the truth when no one else would. The uncle who talked to you like an adult before you'd earned it. The boss who gave you the shot that changed everything. The teacher who saw the potential before you did.
None of them had to. That's the whole point.
Your dad — if you had a good one — operated inside a bond that culture, biology, and expectation built for him. These other guys operated outside all of that. They chose you from scratch. And whether they knew it or not, they built something in you that you're still using.
This Sunday, take sixty seconds and think about who those guys were for you.
And if one of them is still alive, tell them.
Don't wait for a eulogy to say it.