In the Afterword of the 25th year Edition of publication, author H. G. Bissinger describes interviewing several of the high school football players who had been central to the book Friday Night Lights. (Da Capo Publication 2015) Most of the players acknowledged they had not experienced, nor did they ever expect to experience, anything like the 1988 season. One player, now a businessman said,

“It took me about 10-15 years of working in different groups, different places, different environments, to finally come to the conclusion and realization I’m not ever gonna have a group of coworkers and teammates like I had then.” (page 402)

I am saddened to think that life peaked for many of them when they left high school. For some, the “tribe” experience was not duplicated off the field nor have they found another working relationship or friendship to equal.

Chick-Fil-A shifted their mission statement to one-word: Remarkable! That word was to define engagement with customers and the culture of the work place—how workers engaged with each other.

“A Remarkable Culture where people BELIEVE the best IN each other; WANT the best FOR each other and EXPECT the best FROM each other.”

Wouldn’t you like to work in that culture? Would that be a driving and defining mission statement for a family? Wouldn’t you like to be part of tribe defined by that?

©2016 D. Dean Benton        Writer, Wonderer.     Bentonministries.com    DeanBenton.org