Peach Tree Times

During a commencement address at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, a two-time Super Bowl champion and outspoken Catholic, urged graduates to eschew focusing on wealth and material success and turn their attention toward getting married and starting a family.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, commended Butker for his pro-family stance in the speech and agreed that marriage and family are instrumental in true happiness.

"Like so many of his field goal kicks, Harrison Butker was right on target with this speech,” Schilling told the Peach Tree Times. “Although our culture tells American youth that professional success and wealth are the keys to happiness, the truth is very different.”

Schilling also noted that individuals can only achieve meaningful fulfillment when they sacrifice for something that is greater than themselves, and marriage and family provide that pathway.

“Unfortunately, many young adults today have been duped into putting off starting a family or avoiding it altogether,” Schilling said. “This has become a growing crisis, both for them and the country as a whole.”

Schilling maintains that a healthy nation needs strong families capable of creating the next generation and shaping it into a collection of “virtuous citizens,” claiming that a breakdown in marriage and family will have disastrous results for all of us.

“It's great to see public figures like Harrison Butker advocating on behalf of the family, even in relatively hostile environments like left-wing college campuses,” Shilling concluded. “We need more pro-family role models to do the same."

In his address, shared in a tweet by Danny De Urbina, Butker noted that regardless of how much money one might earn, wealth will be hollow if a person is alone and ‘devoid of purpose.”

“There are too many examples to list of people who have achieved great worldly success and fleeting happiness, but in the end, are unfulfilled,” Butker said in the address.

Butker also told graduates that he has earned fame and awards through his football career, but his Super Bowl rings are not the most important ring in his life.

“Studies have shown one of the many negative effects of the pandemic is that a lot of young adults feel a sense of loneliness, anxiety and depression, despite technology that has connected us more than ever before," Butker said. "It would seem the more connected people are to one another, the more they feel alone. I'm not sure the root of this, but at least I can offer one controversial antidote that I believe will have a lasting impact for generations to come: Get married and start a family."

Butker, according to Sports Lulu, met his wife, Isabelle, when he was 15 years old. The couple wed five years ago in a Christian ceremony, with the Kansas City Chiefs kicker sharing wedding photos on his Instagram page. Butker noted in the caption he would pray to God for the "strength and tenacity" to make all of the sacrifices necessary for Isabelle throughout their marriage. The couple welcomed a son in 2019.

Butker has been the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs for six seasons, according to the team’s website, and holds the Chiefs franchise record for most field goals made in a season, connecting on 38 kicks during the 2017 season.