If Only Father Flanagan Had Found Him

“There’s no such thing as a bad boy.”

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That’s the way I learned the phrase, having spent much of my youth in Omaha, where Father Flanagan long ago established Boys Town for troubled youngsters.

In the early 1950s, my dad coached there for a couple of years. When we moved a few years later to a small Nebraska town of 200 where Dad was coach and school superintendent, he brought the basketball team to Omaha to play Boys Town, to give the farm boys a glimpse of city life and a different definition of reality.

That experience and its national reputation put Boys Town in my consciousness at an early age. Father Flanagan’s hopeful belief about wayward boys, embodied in the quotation above, stuck with me. And there was the 1938 movie “Boys Town,” for which Spencer Tracy won the Oscar. With child star Mickey Rooney playing a juvenile delinquent who is redeemed, it was easy to believe that loving care and guidance could save “lost” boys.

Charles Andrew Williams is a lost boy.

The 15-year-old who shot up Santana High School on Monday is as diminutive and floppy-haired as was cinema’s Mickey Rooney.

Williams is no Mickey Rooney.

Who knows if Father Flanagan ever met anyone like young Mr. Williams, who brought a pistol to school and then fired away with an eerie look of contentment on his face.

I wonder what Father Flanagan would say about him. I wonder if he’d rewrite his line on bad boys.

Causes of Violence Remain the Same

Who better to ask than officials at Girls and Boys Town, as it’s now known?

“I think Father Flanagan would definitely [still] say that,” says program official Keith Diederich, who hastened to tell me the famous founder’s exact words:

“There are no bad boys. Only bad environments, training, bad examples and bad thinking.”

Probably said in the 1920s or 1930s, those words still apply, Diederich says. “The means of violence may have changed over the years, but the causes of our youths’ problems and our families’ problems--as far as the environment, bad examples and bad thinking--are prevalent in our society. You see that in the streets of America wherever you go.”

Aside from its Omaha headquarters, the organization has other sites around the country, including group homes and programs in Orange County, Los Angeles and Long Beach that serve about 1,000 youngsters.

Girls and Boys Town official Steve Gunther won’t theorize as to what may have propelled young Williams on his murderous rampage.

Their program, he says, emphasizes building relationships and teaching youngsters how to make good decisions and be accountable for them.

That sounds jargonistic, but it boils down to trying to ensure that young people don’t end up isolated, confused or hopeless as they cope with life.

“It’s critical for young people to have relationships with caring adults that are built on respect, trust and honesty,” Gunther says. From there, youngsters are taught that they “must be accountable and responsible for their decisions and actions and that there are consequences for those actions.”

To good, capable parents, that sounds obvious. The sad reality is that many parents either can’t pull it off or don’t try.

Neither Gunther nor Diederich claims that their way is foolproof. Both say complicated factors led to the school shootings that have shaken American society.

But they believe it still comes down to basics that have survived the decades.

“It’s dangerous to try and find a simple solution,” Gunther says. “The danger is in not dealing with the bigger issues,” such as holding children accountable for their behavior, demonstrating right and wrong, and teaching them to manage anger and express themselves.

It’s a long, twisted trail that has taken America from Father Flanagan’s time to now. Society is noisier and more complex, the diversions greater, the tilt toward violence more pronounced.

Without them saying so, I bet Diederich and Gunther wish they could have gotten to boys like Williams and other schoolhouse shooters.

As they talk, it isn’t hard to imagine the echo of Father Flanagan in their voices, saying to any who will listen that there are no bad boys.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.