Incredible as it seems the Manning name has been in the sports news for nearly a half-century. It began in the late ‘60s with Archie Manning’s emergence as a collegiate star at Ole’ Miss and continued through his playing days with the New Orleans Saints.
The latest splash is son Peyton’s doing: he’s back in the Super Bowl. He got there by passing for 400 yards, completing a game-record 32 passes, and earning a QB rating of 118.4 in the AFC Championship game. Those are incredible numbers for a nearly 40-year-old who suffered serious neck injuries only a few years ago. The Colts didn’t re-sign him, and the Broncos did, gambling that Payton still had “it.” Well, does he ever!
Now Peyton has a chance to win a second Super Bowl ring, the outcome sweetened by where it’s being played: in Brother Eli’s home stadium. If the Broncos win, then turnabout is fair play: Eli won his ring as a New York Giant on Peyton’s former home field in Indianapolis.
Courtesy: ESPN/30 for 30
All of this is just another incredible chapter in the phenomenal Manning family story. But If this story were to become a Hollywood film, screenwriters might not script it the way it’s presented in real life in Rory Karpf’s magnificent “THE BOOK OF MANNING” (2013), a documentary from ESPN FILMS produced in collaboration with The Southeastern Conference and presented as part of the network’s “30 for 30” series.
The documentary has an underlying theme: an important feature of the Manning narrative isn’t about football at all: it’s about family, character-building, and effective parenting.
While the Mannings’ football accomplishments are beyond the grasp of everyday Americans, the Manning approach to family values isn’t. The goal—in which everyone can share—is to help young people mature into capable, contributing, responsible, and respectful adults. No greater or more important task is that.
Recently, Moises Valesquez-Manoff wrote about the importance of parenting in THE NEW YORK TIMES (January 18). He cites research conducted by a variety of scientists on the relative impact of parental warm and support on child development, especially as young people experience stressful events. For example, when MRI scans of limited-resource children were taken over time, there’s some evidence that a particular type of brain development is affected more by parental warmth then by material poverty.
For Archie Manning parental warmth came mostly from mom, Jane, and not so much from dad, Buddy. The father-son connection was through sports (Archie was a local star), but it was Jane who attended most of his high school games while Buddy tended mostly to work. Jane watched Archie develop his trademark quarterbacking style: bolting out of the pocket; twisting and turning behind the line of scrimmage eluding one tackler after the other; and, then, either finding an open receiver with a pass or snaking down the field on the run.
Courtesy: ESPN
Dad was present but, perhaps, he didn’t have a great presence.
Upon returning home from a social event in late summer 1969 Archie found his father dead from suicide. It was a few weeks before Archie’s scheduled return to Ole’ Miss. As time would soon reveal, it would be the most eventful season of his young athletic life: in 1969 Archie became a national star.
Given the traumatic circumstances, Archie wanted to be there for his mother and family, and he also had an athletic career in front of him. Perhaps this wasn’t an either-or choice as much as it compelled him to declare HIS way of being in the world—in other words, how he would approach life.
The most striking thing about Archie’s approach to life is the way he balanced career responsibilities with family obligations. That’s especially difficult when your profession is a matter of constant public commentary and scrutiny, when there’s enormous pressure to perform because so many people are invested in the quality and impact of your work. It’s easy in those circumstances to devote just about every waking moment to “the job.”
Yet, Archie wasn’t an absentee father; more than anything he was a dad. And while he had an ongoing and demonstrable presence with his boys, he didn’t direct or control them, nor did he mold or fashion them. He and Olivia, his spouse, let the kids grow up, being there to mentor, guide, and support them.
Those attributes certainly applied to the topic of football. Rather than impart or impose what he knew, Archie would respond with help when asked.
A watershed parental moment came when Peyton was making his college choice. Many assumed that he’d enroll at Ole’ Miss, but Peyton announced for Tennessee instead. Parent Archie had no intention of “delivering” his son to his Alma Mater, even though many expected him to do just that. As a parent Archie wanted Peyton to make the decision that was right for him.
The same approach, with an opposite result, came with Eli’s college choice: the outcome was Ole’ Miss. Then, not long after arriving on campus. Eli was arrested for public intoxication. Was that a public embarrassment for Archie and Olivia? Most likely it was. However, as parents, other matters loomed large: What would Eli learn from that experience? How would he translate that learning into future behaviors?
Keep all of this in mind on February 2, Super Bowl Sunday. Focus on the Broncos’ iconic quarterback, but don’t look at him as the pro football star he is today. Instead, picture him as a 10- or 15-year old, back in the day when he was home with his parents in New Orleans.
While it’s impossible to know just how much good parenting has contributed to Peyton’s (and Eli’s) success, we can certainly ask a question: What would society be like if all children had an opportunity to experience that type of upbringing?
To answer that question you’ll need to look beyond the life the young Manning’s lived as sons of a football star, including the financial and social advantages that lifestyle offers. Just think about the opportunity for any child to grow up in a persistently loving and supportive family environment. Then, think about how that child’s life might turn out, say, 10 or 20 years down the road.
None of us needs to be a pro quarterback to give the gift of good parenting. We just need to think of it as the best gameplan in life.
This column is dedicated to Frank Fear, Jr. and Olin “Buddy” Campbell. Just like Archie, they’ve balanced career responsibilities with family obligations masterfully. They are dads.
