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Jeff Kemp, son of the late congressman and head of Stronger Families, agrees that Brees has his priorities in order: ?Drew connected his relationships to his triumphs. It contrasted success for self with success for other, the legacy of the next generation. Love was elevated over trophies, legacy over self.? Kemp, like his father, is a former NFL quarterback.  
 
?There is something so beautiful about seeing a father, at the height of his professional career, with the whole world cheering him, blocking all that out to share that moment with his son,? Raymond Arroyo, EWTN news host and himself a New Orleans native and father of sons, tells me. ?One can imagine what that boy will think years from now when he sees himself with those ear protectors, in his father?s arms at the end of the Super Bowl.? 
 
Surveying these reactions to the winning image, I note one thing in particular: Men tend to focus more often than not on the son. Jerome Ritcher observes: ?From the perspective of the son there are fewer things more important than to be held and loved by your father, so if I was to use that picture of Brees with his son I would relate it from the perspective of the son. Every man was once a son, and they all want to be approved by their father. Brees is giving this to his son by showing he is most important in his life.? Besides being a son, husband, father, and football man, Richter is a Catholic high-school teacher in Bismarck, North Dakota, where he runs Knights of Virtue, a group for teenage boys that instructs them in living virtuously, mastering passions, and being a hero in the world where they live.  
 
Back in 1996, the late sociologist Elizabeth Fox-Genovese wrote in National Review that ?fatherhood -- good fatherhood -- grounds the well-being of children; its absence painfully cripples them and all of us. Whatever we may like to believe, neither mothers alone nor the village can substitute, and the personal failings of individual men inescapably result in ?a major public crisis.?? 
 
Fatherhood still may be in a state of crisis, but we?re fighting for it, one devoted dad at a time. Drew Brees, fatherhood?s latest poster boy, has struck an inspiring blow for the cause. Like all of us, he?s only human, but there?s great virtue in cheering him on and celebrating the beautiful Super Bowl moment that he shared with his wife and son -- and all of us. No paid ad time. No controversy. Only love.

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. She can be reached at klopez@nationalreview.com.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).