Building Men Playbook: A Manual on How to Create and Implement a Building Men Program in Your School or Community

By Joe Horan

 The Building Men Playbook shares how to create and implement a group mentoring program that will engage your youth in academic, character, and personal development.

The playbook provides ways to foster significance, integrity, and relationships in the lives of our youth. It demonstrates ways to use activities and sports to generate academic accountability, healthy competition, and growth. Using team-building exercises, community service, and rites of passage, this playbook shows how to develop young men that can impact the schools and communities around them.

We hope this playbook will inspire and motivate you to begin building men and transform the hearts of our youth, staff, and beyond.

About the Author

Joe Horan is the Executive Director of the Building Men Program in Syracuse, New York. He founded Building Men in 2006 to help boys and young men become men of significance and integrity who value and build relationships. Joe holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from SUNY Cortland and has 30 years of experience as an educator and coach in middle and high school. Over the course of his career, he has been recognized by Parents Partnership for Education, the Syracuse City School District, Coaches of Section III, Vera House Inc., and WSTM Channel 3 for his commitment and service to students. Joe has provided many professional development sessions on Building Men and teaching with the heart for the Syracuse City School District; the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; the ECET2 conference;, and State University of New York at Cortland. Joe lives in Syracuse with his wife MaryPat and has three children.