Heroes and Influencers: Brian Mooar
June 8, 2021
When I was in college, I did not think I was smart enough to go to law school. I thought I would settle for something that made less of a distinct impact. Thankfully, I had a friend who showed me that it is perfectly okay to chase your dreams.
I met Brian Mooar in high school. Brian and I worked on the student newspaper together and we read and shared a love of Hunter S. Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, and Hell’s Angels painted a picture of a man so confident in his ability to succeed that he had a complete disregard for the norms that society wanted to push him into. We wanted to be like that.
After high school, Brian set off for Kent State University and I set off for Bowling Green State University. Brian tore into journalism like a dog with a fresh bone. While I hemmed and hawed about diving into the deep end of what I wanted, Brian continued plowing ahead. His single-mindedness helped me gain the confidence to pursue law school.
We lost touch, and I have only watched him from afar as he has been deployed to war zones and continues to appear on NBC and MSNBC on a variety of stories, mostly political these days. Every time I see him or hear about him it makes me smile as I remember a person who was so supportive and formative to me at an important time of my life.
Do you have someone like that that helped push you along the right path when you needed it? Do they know how important they were to you? Brian Mooar was one of those people for me, and to him I quote Dr. Thompson:
So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
