Esquire: ‘Are There Still Boy Scouts?’

Update Sept. 16: The Gates article is now available on Esquire’s website.


The headline and teaser alone will hook you:

“Are There Still Boy Scouts? Millions of them, in tens of thousands of troops, though not nearly as many as there once were. Robert Gates is hoping to change that.”

Esquire, the highly respected men’s magazine that reaches 2.6 million adults, profiles BSA National President Robert M. Gates in its October 2014 issue.

I got a sneak peek at the article this morning and can tell you it’s a must-read.

The 3,100-word piece covers Gates’ own experience as the son of a Boy Scout, as an Eagle Scout and now as the BSA’s top national volunteer.

Gates tells the article’s writer, Mike Sager, that “the country needs Scouting now more than ever. More and more kids come from broken homes, half of all marriages end in divorce, an amazing number of boys grow up without a positive male role model in their lives. ”

If you find those words powerful as a Scouter, imagine their impact on Americans who may have written off Scouting. They’ll read this article and give Scouting another look.

That said, this is no puff piece. It includes an honest look at the BSA’s membership policy decision and facts about our declining membership.

Gates proves to Sager that America needs Scouting, but I appreciated that Sager sought out additional proof.

He spoke with Romualdo Vasquez Pena III, a Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles who has been his troop’s Scoutmaster since 1994. Pena has overcome the challenge of introducing Scouting into a Hispanic community that’s unclear about the organization’s purpose.

“I try to tell them: Somehow your son can have a future — and Scouting is going to open things up. Maybe he’s going to a university, maybe he could be the next president of the United States. He could be a court justice. The opportunity is there, it just has to be taken, and you have to give it a chance, just like you take your kid to soccer.”

Three of the 14 young men who have become Eagle Scouts under Pena’s leadership were also interviewed. One of them, Joaquin Morales, lives right in the territory of a prominent gang. With the help of Scouting, he avoided the gang life, graduated high school and wants to be a firefighter.

“To be honest,” says Morales, the youngest, “I just wanted to feel that glory. I saw how the Eagle Scouts were respected. I was like, I gotta do that, you know? In my family, my parents didn’t go to college. If I can accomplish this and also that, that’s bringing my family up.”

Hearing that makes Pena understandably emotional.

“My Eagle Scouts, I consider them my sons,” he says. “Every single one of them. When they get their Eagle, I just wanna cry so bad, but I hold it inside because I’m so happy. Knowing that I give these young men a tool that they will use for the rest of their lives—no one can take that Eagle away from him.”

Gates gets the last words, and they’re powerful:

“In Scouting, there’s a secular emphasis on values and virtue that is not found anyplace else,” he says. “We don’t teach civic values in schools anymore, so where else are kids going to learn it?”

Read an excerpt at Scouting Newsroom

Esquire has given the BSA’s official news blog, Scouting Newsroom, the OK to run the first 500 words of the profile.

Read it here.

Read the whole article in the October 2014 Esquire

Better yet — pick up the October 2014 edition of Esquire, on newsstands now or available digitally on your favorite tablet.

You’ll be glad you did. The full article is packed with inspiring words that validate the great work of the BSA’s volunteers like you.

UPDATE: It’s now available to read online, too.


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.