Apr

6

The Little Chap Who Follows Me – John Wooden

Filed Under Fatherhood 

While watching basketball, I heard a wonderful Gatorade commercial featuring John Wooden reading the poem “The Little Chap Who Follows Me”.  The poem describes the burden a father carries to create a positive impression on his son.

A careful man I must always be;
A little fellow follows me.
I know I dare not go astray
For fear he’ll go the self same way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate’er he sees me do, he tries.
Like me he says he’s going to be;
This little chap who follows me.

He thinks that I am good and fine,
Believes in every word of mine.
The base in me he must not see;
This little chap who follows me.

I must be careful as I go
Through summer’s sun and winter’s snow,
Because I am building for the years to be;
This little chap who follows me.

There are countless things my father did to set a positive example.  I can’t count the number of times he could have taken the easy way out, acted carelessly or thoughtlessly.  I can definitely attest that I was the “little chap” who followed him because of his behavior.  He set the bar extremely high, which is why I feel obligated to match it.

Doing the right thing, however small and inconsequential, is not often rewarded or noticed.  It is often the tlittle things  like telling the truth when it’s inconvenient or going above and beyond to increase the comfort of your family that make a big impression on a “little chap”.

To read more about caring for your family, read here.

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Comments

4 Responses to “The Little Chap Who Follows Me – John Wooden”

  1. SharookhNo Gravatar on April 26th, 2009 10:12 pm

    That was a very moving poem.  I am deeply touched by your comments and very happy for you!  This is an outstanding website and can develop into a great business. Keep building as it can never be “good enough”!

    Love….. Dad

  2. DavidNo Gravatar on November 20th, 2010 11:42 pm

    hey can you send me the audio for this so i can put it on my ipod?

  3. Thomas SmallridgeNo Gravatar on June 21st, 2011 12:09 am

    I very much hate to correct anyone on anything. Although John Wooden DID read this poem in the Gatorade commercial, he did NOT write the poem.
    I am almost 60 years old. When my grandmother found out she had a new grandson, she gave my father an old newspaper clipping with this poem in it. She had clipped that poem from the paper years before that. At the end of the poem in that clipping, it says AUTHOR UNKNOWN. I have that very clipping in a frame on my desk. Although John Wooden was an act of class, this NOT his work. Please, verify. This what is wrong with the internet.

  4. gandswNo Gravatar on November 4th, 2011 4:37 pm

    I don’t see that anyone ever said Wooden wrote this, just that he read it.  The author was Rev. Claude Wisdom White, Sr

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