Coach Urban Meyer announced Wednesday that he was resigning from his job as the head coach of the Florida University football teaml. (Can you retire in your 40’s? Can you NOT retire when you make 4 million a year?) Meyer stated that it was now time for him to spend more time with his family.  Based on Meyer’s character, his past winning record, and a lack of scandal. It looks like he really is quitting his 24/7 job to spend more time with his family. So many times, “I need to spend more time with my family.” usually means “They won’t let me work here anymore.” but by all accounts Coach Meyer is making a good change for a good reason.

There was not much hoopla around his decision other than the news story itself and then the story about what it means for the Florida football program. What I was afraid of (and still am) is that folks are going to try and make Meyer a hero for deciding to spend more time with his kids and wife. It seems that every time a father does something that is actually fatherly then we want to celebrate it. Meyer is no hero. There is nothing heroic about never seeing your child participate in their high school sport of choice. There is nothing heroic about missing your child’s first couple of years in collegiate sports. Work is important, four million is hard to pass up, but there is nothing heroic about deciding to do something right after it is too late to make it right.

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According to his wife Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt is a great father. She said because he takes care of the kids then she can continue to have a career and be a mom. Now, in the looks department, there is a little difference between Brad and I. My wife is better looking than Angelina, but she is not a movie star. However, what Brad and I do have in common is that we both love our children, we love our wives, and we want to be good fathers. See, I am just like Brad Pitt. I am not working to save New Orleans with housing projects but I have been down to NO to work with Head Start programs and we are committed to building better homes while Brad is building houses. See, just alike. Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times reported that “Michelle Rhee, the reform-minded chancellor who took over the District of Columbia public schools three years ago, on Friday fired 241 teachers, or 5 percent of the district’s total.” This seems pretty extreme and as you can imagine, the teacher unions are all up in arms about it as well. However, if your child has ever had a teacher that was not competent then you know that you want that teacher to quit impacting kids in a negative way. We always want him or her gone. In a district the size of DC I can imagine that 5 percent were incompetent.

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I have been a fan of DadLabs for several years and have talked to these guys several times. I recently got a chance to hang out with DaddyClay and DaddyBrad at the National PTA conference in Memphis. These are some great guys with a great show and they are definitely Strong Fathers. They talk a lot more about younger kids, beer, and spit-up but they have a great show even though they do not use a lot of duct tape. Check out this recent article about DadLabs in USA TODAY.