Last Minute Eagles

CA Scouter comments: It would be interesting to hear your reflections on Scouts putting off Eagle til they’re 17.5 years old and then trying to get their project and missing merit badges done in the small amount of time left. … in a perfect world, the SM has been counseling boys not to let it get to this point, but as you say, Scout aged boys do a lot of things they shouldn’t. Any reflections on this particular situation would be of value.

I hope this helps: As you note Scout aged boys are still growing, even at 17 and a half.

I have to laugh because I have two last-minute last minute lulus working hard on their projects right now.

I do find this peculiarly provoking because I am a bit of a last minute lulu myself.

I get a lot less upset about this now than I used to. Over the years I have developed what I think is an effective way helping Scouts conceptualize what it is going to take for them to become Eagles, especially the element of time. We diagram a time line that begins with their Life Scoutmasters conference and ends with their eighteenth birthday. We factor in involvement in school, church, sport, merit badges, and the average time to conceive, lead and complete a project. When they see the time line they have (at least for a while) a pretty good concept about what they need to do.

I always tell them that they will complicate things tenfold if they wait, that they should have a plan and get things moving right away. Very few of them have ever taken my advice.

I really don’t think this will ever really change or that it is a new trend – I’ll bet the first Eagle Scout was almost late getting a signature or something.

After two or three late season Eagle Scouts most Scoutmasters set out to fix the ‘problem’. They dream up rules and regulations, policies and procedures designed to make the Scoutmaster’s life easier.

Despite all this some Scouts will still get a late start.

I figure that this is not a problem that can be fixed or regulated any more than the hundred other excesses and deficits that mark the life of any developing human being or ourselves as adults. When we sign on as Scoutmasters we accept that we are working with what Plato called “the most unmanageable of all the animals”. We can’t protect them from the consequences of their actions, nor do we want to. Part of the intensive learning process in achieving Eagle is developing an appreciation for planning and timing.

I haven’t ever done anything extraordinary to help my last minute lulus, they have to figure things out just like any other Eagle Candidate (only faster).

Whether a Scout starts working on Eagle in earnest with two years or two months left to go the most important thing is that they actually started.

Floyd Starr (founder of Starr Commonwealth, the first residential treatment center for ‘juvenile delinquents’) is famous for saying “There is no such thing as a bad boy”.

I agree but, from time to time, some of them can be a real pain in the butt.