May 16, 2005
Commencement Address by Brad Mayne
President/CEO
American Airlines Center
Home to the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars

It truly is a privilege to have this opportunity in honoring your graduation from the University of Texas at Arlington. 

This graduating class has achieved a lot.  You have worked hard.

Everyone join me in offering congratulations to the class of 2005.

Now, graduates, join me in offering a round of applause to your family, friends and educators for supporting you these past several years.

Commencement speeches are interesting things. 

I’ve wondered if they are about beginnings or endings?

For me…  it was definitely a beginning.

You know---I was supposed to be a plumber.

I wanted to be a plumber.

But…my Dad made me go to college.  So I went to the University of Utah and I got my BS in Leisure.     No it’s true.  BS in Leisure.    College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

And then I got my associates degree in plumbing at Salt Lake Community College, and became a journeyman plumber.

It’s an honorable profession.  If you’ve ever needed a plumber then you know just how much they charge.    Somebody in the family has to make some money.

There are some great people in those jobs.  I remember reading the obituary of a New Jersey plumber.  It said:

"On Saturday, friends, relatives and associates will say farewell to the late Joey Palone, plumber, hopeless romantic, seducer of mafia wives."

It’s true.  It has to be---it was in the paper.

I always wanted a truck that would say:

"Don't sleep with a drip. Call Mayne’s Plumbing

And this was all before Desperate Housewives.

Why am I telling you all this?  I want to convey that whatever you do in your first job…It won’t be your last job.

Besides it’s a little like what they say about teaching----if I ever lose my job---plumbing is something I can fall back on.

Hopefully that won’t happen.

But I can tell you that I never imagined I would have a job working for Mark Cuban and Tom Hicks and that I would be responsible for one of the premier event venues in the country.

And that first job---as a plumber­­---helped me get here.

I was working for a large national management firm and they needed someone to look after their interests in meetings with the City of Anaheim, the arena contractor, the architects and design team to monitor the progress on The Pond---which would become the new arena and home of the new, Disney owned, Mighty Ducks hockey team.

They needed someone who was proficient in managing arenas and could also read and understand blueprints.  Part of being a plumber is to be able to read blueprints.  I was the only person within the company that fit their needs.  Within a year, I was project manager---all because I knew something about plumbing.  Then----I was promoted to general manager and finally regional manager, responsible for the whole Western United States and Canada.  From there I was recruited to Dallas to work with Ross Perot Jr. and Tom Hicks. 

Later, as you know, the Mavs ownership changed to Mark Cuban.

Speaking of Mark Cuban, he likes to say:

“If we give 150% every single day to doing what we can to make the game better for our fans and our players, the future will take care of itself.”

I’m concerned that Mark forgot about a couple of obstacles from the Phoenix Suns, namely Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire

Giving 150% doesn’t mean you have to be right all the time.  You will make mistakes, especially as you are starting out. None of you will be perfect in your first job, despite your great education here.

But employers are looking for the 150 percenters.  They will observe your work ethic, your commitment, your flexibility, and ability to reinvent yourself, along with your knack and desire for continual learning. 

Even in education and fitness management, there’s no such thing as a job for life.  You will find that you have to keep reinventing yourself.

I must admit that I’ve yet to meet someone who is perfect in his or her first try or first draft, so to speak.  We are all continually embarking on first drafts, in every aspect of our lives and to succumb to the frustration of failure is to undercut the very purpose of a first draft.  Get it down, get it all down, and apply the 150% rule.  Then go back and using what you have learned… get it right, if not the first time then the second or third, fourth or fifth time.  Madame Marie Curie and her husband Pierre were attempting to isolate radium from a low-grade uranium ore called pitch blende.  After their 487^th experiment had failed, Pierre threw up his hands in despair and stated, “it will never be done…  Maybe in a hundred years, but never in my lifetime”.  Marie confronted him and said, “If it takes a hundred years it will be a pity, but I will not cease to work for it, as long as I am able.”  She was eventually successful and cancer patience have benefited greatly from her perseverance.  

As you apply the 150% rule, and you re-do the work until you succeed, you begin to see the logic in learning.  You begin to appreciate this process of hard work… interesting but hard work.  This process will prove that inspiration and luck are nice to have, but they are strategically negotiable.

As far as getting it right the first time…  Mark Twain once said that when he was fourteen years old his Dad was an idiot – when he became 21 years old, he was amazed at just how much his Dad learned in just seven years.

Although we frequently look to the scoreboards to find life’s winners…that’s not how most of us get defined.  I believe the winners are the people who never give up pursuing their goals and dreams.  Winners are folks who never give up offering their time and talents to making this a better world to live. 

That’s a similar message that Winston Churchill delivered in a commencement speech at Oxford University.  Churchill really didn’t reach the pinnacle of his career until he was in his early ‘60s.  At the Oxford commencement he was asked the secret of his success. 

He strode to the podium….leaned forward….glared at the graduates and said:

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give up.

And then he sat down.

You may be wishing that I would do the same thing.

Sorry.  I have a few more points I want to make.

Another important tenet in life’s journey is risk-taking.

According to Tom Hicks who owns the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Stars:

“You are not going to get a hit, let alone blast the ball out of the park, if you are not willing to take a swing.  You can’t continually stand at home plate with your bat on your shoulder hoping for a walk.  You might strike out.  But some of the leading homerun hitters in baseball have also been leaders in strikeouts.

Our country was built on risk-taking.  Our founders did not produce a constitution to solve all our problems but they did produce a framework that encouraged entrepreneurship, ideas, freedom…  and risk-taking.

I personally like the famous words of hockey star Wayne Gretsky:

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.

I am not saying that you should take every shot that comes your way.  Some of the students that came before you did just that…… when they skipped college or dropped out to go to work for dot-com companies.

But use the skill sets you’ve learned here at UTA to evaluate risks and possible rewards.  Then decide----and go for it.

Next------honor yourself.  You hear a lot about balance in the workplace.

As you become educators, administrators or managers of health and physical activities you may have people ask you if educating is a “fun” job or if you chose it because you get the summer off.

Let’s see:  You get to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. 

Not only that, you are supposed to instill them with pride in their country, and teach them to fight racism, be for patriotism, just say no to drugs and learn to protect yourselves from diseases…   and help shape the standards they will aspire to.

And you have to keep things safe, be a good role model, work on your “off time, attend faculty and committee meetings, purchase supplies, maintain your certification, and keep an open dialogue with parents even if they never come to school.

Makes me stressed just to read the list.

By the way, I like the idea that a teacher should send home a note with the kids on the first day of school.  It would say:

"If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at school, I'll promise not to believe everything they say happens at home!

Like most chosen vocations, education is a stressful career.

And, every study on the workplace finds that balanced employees---yes even educators, principals, and athletic trainers---are happier if they love their work and they have a strong base of support at home and/or among friends.

I promise you that I truly could not have had success with out my family.

In your field, there will always be one more thing to do, one more person to help, one more chore to finish.  It is truly essential for you to remember that you don’t understand the meaning of saying Yes----until you have said no.

Make balance a part of your life.  Even though you are doing God’s work:  helping children learn----It’s important to apply the balance principles into your routine.

Reflect on my work habits every once in a while, and ask yourself if you are giving your family, and yourself enough of your time, as your family and friends are, and will always be, the most important possession that you will ever acquire.

Next----you can be a major influence when you help our children and our community, learn to celebrate our differences as well as our sameness.

At American Airlines Center, we have a diverse work force.  It includes people of all races, color, ethnicities and gender.  And, there are differences in backgrounds, education and experience.

Housekeepers, chefs, attorneys, cashiers, police officers, stage hands, sales people, electricians, people who can put round balls and galvanized rubber pucks into nets and trainers who can help keep them on the Ice and Court...  Maintenance workers, human resource specialists, CPAs, ticket sellers.  The list goes on and on.

And just like the team on the court, on the ice, or on the turf, everyone must handle his or her tasks, in order for our team to be successful.   We discuss the importance of making all 3 million guests we host each year, feel as though they have had a grand experience, one that inspires them to come back to the American Airlines Center for another event.  I know that working together and celebrating our diversity is the reason for our success.

Your workplace will be diverse!

And sometimes people will tell us---like they will tell you----to run your schools or your school systems like a business.

It sounds like a good idea, even in a school system.

But remember this story about the business executive who represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools.  In fact, he was the guy whose ice cream company became famous in the ‘90s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”

He was convinced that schools were archaic and out of step with our emerging knowledge society.  And he blamed educators as part of the problem because they resisted change. 

This executive found himself making a speech to these educators, and he told them to look to business as a role model. 

He told them to produce quality.  Have zero defects.  Total quality management. Continuous improvement.

Later, he realized the speech was balanced---equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

You see: 

When he was done, a woman’s hand shot up.  She appeared pleasant, polite.  Everyone else knew her as razor edged, veteran English teacher who was just waiting to unload.

She began---in a soft-spoken way.

“We are told sir that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

You bet.  Best in the world.

“Lovely,” she said.  “Is it rich and smooth?”

“16% butterfat.” he said.

“Premium ingredients?”

“Absolutely.  In fact super premium.”

He never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Executive”, she said, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

At this point, the executive could hear the trap close.  But he had to make his point…

“I send them back.”

“That’s right,” the teacher said.  “As educators we take them from big, small, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, homeless, rude and brilliant. 

“They have ADD, ADHD, ESL and all sorts of other letters of the alphabet after their names.  We take them all.  Every one.”

“That’s why it’s not a business. It’s a school.”

So, if anyone challenges you about running your school like a business.  Tell them about the blueberries.

That doesn’t mean that education and fitness management should stay the same.  You are graduating at a time of extraordinary learning because of technology, the rapid changes in science and a changing world economy.

One last thought:

Should you remain in your chosen field of education and kinesiology, you will be employed in helping and in educating people.  Let’s remember that every child that grows up hungry or homeless, every child that grows up uneducated, every young adult denied training and job opportunities represents precious human resources that we cannot afford to lose. 

We have been told, “to whom much is given, much is required.”  As witnessed here today, much has been given, and you will achieve much more.  I ask that in return, you share, you care, you dare, and you lead, for you can make a difference!  You are proof that you can live up to your potential as you have labored to achieve your education.  Let us all accept our responsibility to positively affecting the lives of those we come in contact with.  We cannot live our lives for ourselves alone.  We are connected to one another in all that we do.

It’s an exciting time to launch your----commencement.

As you begin…..remember the words of Albert Einstein:

It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer ."

And….

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber."

Good luck to you all.  May God bless you in your life’s work.