I had many teachers that were great, positive role models and taught me to be a good person and stand up and be a good man. A lot of the principals they taught me still affect how I act sometimes and it’s 30 years later.

James is reflecting on the long afterlife of moral education: the most consequential lessons he credits to school are not technical skills but character formation—how to behave, how to “stand up,” and how to be accountable as a man. The remark emphasizes the cumulative power of multiple mentors (“many teachers”) and frames their influence as durable, shaping everyday conduct decades later. It also implicitly argues for the social importance of educators as role models whose impact extends far beyond the classroom and far beyond the period when students can easily recognize it.