An Origin Story
1Heroes of Our Youth
Rabbi Cary Friedman and I grew up with uncompromising heroes.
For me, it was Jonny Quest. Homeschooled in the field, Jonny’s true classroom was wherever Dr. Quest and Race Bannon were saving the world. Safetyism did not yet exist.
For Cary, it was Batman. For a young Jewish kid, the Caped Crusader’s transformation of personal loss into moral duty wasn’t just a story—it was an instantly recognizable allegory.
Cary turned that fascination into scholarship, weaving Batman’s moral weight into his lectures at Duke University. That work led to his book Wisdom from the Batcave and a featured appearance in the bonus features of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Blu-ray.
2Real-Life Heroes
This shared heroic ideal shaped our subsequent work alongside law enforcement.
In 1992, I co-founded the Junior Police Academy to change how kids saw officers—not as cautionary, anti-drug figures, but as genuine heroes.
For Cary, heroic virtue touched the transcendent. He authored the widely acclaimed Spiritual Survival for Law Enforcement and later served as a spirituality consultant to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.
3The Austin Project
When Cary and I met in Austin to create educational content for ChaplainUSA, I latched on to one of his central convictions:
a police officer’s well-being is inextricably tied to fidelity to the heroes of their youth.
That became our guiding thesis.
We sat down with veteran officers and zeroed in on their origin stories:
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Ed Burris (Vietnam veteran and retired Texas DPS pilot) looked to John Wayne. (Ed can name every movie where the Duke dies. Can you?)
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Constable Adan Ballesteros drew inspiration from the steely resolve and incorruptibility of Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O. (The Jack Lord original version.)
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And, in a twist that surprised even Cary, Austin ISD Police Chief Eric Mendez's role model was—you guessed it—Batman, and he had a doctored ID to prove it.
Chief Mendez holds up his ID card, with a picture of The Batman taped over his own photograph.
Cary’s theory of the case was spot on. I’ll let him explain.
4The Credo Project Is Born
What emerged weeks later was The Credo Project—a way for today’s officers to tap into that same superhero, cowboy clarity.
My Credo is an interactive refresher course built from those original sessions. It offers a simple, powerful way to find your heroic spirit and carry it into daily life. Like the heroes of our youth, it is ultimately about choosing the unconventional path and aspiring to be the hero in your own life.