Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.
At one time, there was a stereotype that your Girl Scout leader was the mother of a Brownie, but increasingly, we are having young businesswomen and professional women who are not mothers but care about children.
Many people don’t know, but American Girl Scouts get to travel the world, and that’s a very good thing, as the more we can expose our young people to other cultures, the better off we’ll be in this increasingly globalized environment.
The Boy Scouts, of course, had an influence on me because I learned about service in the community.
I feel like I’ve always been doubted or slighted. Let’s be honest. When you’re a walk-on, you don’t start for a No. 1 team, a national championship contender. You just don’t. A walk-on is a guy who plays scout team, who’s just happy to be on the team.
One of the things that’s unique about Louisiana politics is that people here have a much more realistic attitude about who their politicians are. They know they are human and not saints or Mormons or Eagle Scouts.
I think, generally speaking as a player, when I hear the word ‘scout,’ it’s usually, ‘The Seattle Storm are playing the L.A. Sparks tomorrow; the assistant coaches are scouting the L.A. Sparks.’ And then they come to us and give a scouting report on the players and the team.
The scouts are watching matches and we have a huge amount of data we purchase and a pyramid approach in terms of delivering that information to our chief scout and his team who are assessing it.
In the past, children learned their values at home, reinforced by organizations such as the Boy Scouts and, of course, their church or synagogue, but in all too many families that is no longer the case.
Scouts always think they’re right. They’re not right all the time. They don’t even know how hard it is. Most of those scouts never played baseball.
It’s like the Boy Scouts’ motto, be prepared. You’ve got to be ready when the moment is offered. If you’re not, you can actually screw it up for life.
There’d be a call from Michigan Scout, then Michigan Rivals, then Iowa Scout, then Iowa Rivals. These guys are competing, and I’m just the guy in the middle giving them the story.
Badges mean nothing in themselves, but they mark a certain achievement and they are a link between the rich and the poor. For when one girl sees a badge on a sister Scout’s arm, if that girl has won the same badge, it at once awakens an interest and sympathy between them.
Scouts have always been surprised by the way I’m able to move at my size. How fast and agile I am.
I was a Girl Scout!
I never had any interest in being involved with the Boy Scouts.
With a growing number of one-parent families in the country, the Girl Scout troop can be an indispensable and powerful positive factor.
I always liked my teachers, and I was in a lot of after-school projects. I was a Girl Scout until my senior year, when I couldn’t be a Girl Scout anymore. I was in clubs like Junior Achievement, and I ran track and field. My grades were good, but then toward 11th grade they were nothing. I always went to summer school.
The Scouts are a private organization and have every right to set their own membership standards.
