The Far Middle episode 159 kicks off with a dedication to legendary football coach Joe Moore. Nick describes Moore, a western Pennsylvania native, as, “the greatest name in the region’s football history that you’ve probably never heard of.”
Moore made lasting impacts at both the high school and collegiate levels, particularly during his tenure at Pitt and Notre Dame, where he developed numerous NFL-bound offensive linemen. Nick highlights Moore’s straightforward, intimidating – but in a good way – coaching style.
While Coach Moore sadly passed away in 2003, his legacy continues today through the Joe Moore Award and the Joe Moore O Line Camp. “He wasn’t an offensive line football coach, he was a leadership guru,” says Nick.
Nick then connects to “another leader, not just of young adults or men and women, but of a nation, and frankly, the world or the free world at the time.” That leader, President Eisenhower, is the focus of this installment as Nick examines Ike’s 1961 farewell address, also known as his ‘military industrial complex’ speech.
Drawing parallels between Eisenhower’s warnings about the military industrial complex and today’s concerns that result from the overarching agenda of the Left, Nick expands upon his recent essay, “Echoes from 1961: Ike’s Fear of Red Scare Consequences and Today’s Crisis of Code Red.” Nick highlights President Eisenhower’s call for an alert and knowledgeable citizenry and stresses the desperate need for such a citizenry today “if we wish to preserve this wonderful human experiment known as the United States of America.”
Nick closes by delving further into 1961, highlighting the release that year of “The Guns of Navarone,” one of Nick’s favorite films. And on the airwaves, the Billboard music charts were dynamic, illustrating the cultural shift between easy listening and rock and roll.
For more from The Far Middle, 1961 also marked Roger Maris hitting 61 home runs in a season, a milestone honored in the opening dedication for Far Middle episode 61.