In Death of a Salesman, Act I, except for his love for his boys, what are the things that make us admire Willy?

It's difficult to see many qualities that one can admire
in Wily from Act I.  I think that we see that we have to admire the fact that Wily seeks
out success.  It will come to be a part of his character that helps to cause his
downfall later on in the play, but in the opening act, we have an understanding about
how he views success.  Wily believes in it and transmits these values to his family. 
Another quality we see in Wily is that he is not lazy.  He does work and he works with a
strong ethic.  His travels to other places, the fact that he still is fighting for
success, are all admirable qualities.  Granted we will learn that Wily is fundamentally
unhappy, but in the opening act we see him as a character who is struggling against the
matrix of odds placed against him and struggling to "make it."  In a very admirable way,
we see that Wily possesses the power of memory, something that allows him to transcend
the difficult times that envelop him and see something else that can allow him to
transform, at least from a mental point of view, his condition.  This can be seen as an
admirable qualitiy in his character.