Bob Schieffer

Bob Schieffer, UT Arlington 2008 Graduation Celbration Keynote Speaker

Bob Schieffer’s Speech to the 2008 Graduates

University of Texas at Arlington
May 9, 2008

I love graduation and I love being asked to speak at Graduation celebrations. What can be a happier time than families coming together to celebrate the achievements of one of their own?

It is a special day that holds special and sometimes very different meanings for each of us—parents, graduates, even one who has been chosen to speak.

To the parents, I say this: I don’t know how it strikes you, but when my grown daughters graduated I felt as if I had just been given a substantial pay raise.

But here is my advice: you’ve gotten them this far, so stay on good terms with them. They are—after all—the ones who will choose the nursing home.

As your speaker, I feel greatly honored, but I also recognize that not much of what I say here will be remembered. I base that on years of experience. I have attended many graduations and heard many graduation speeches, but the truth is I can’t remember any of them, nor can I even remember who spoke at my own graduation. There is a reason for that. Graduations are not about what someone says, but about what you have done so you will always remember this day.

Graduation Day is one of life’s great cross roads. But unlike so many of the cross roads in life it is clearly marked and your route here was clearly charted. You knew what you had to do to get here and you have learned along the way there were no short cuts.

And now you are here. For most of your child hood and all of your adult lives you have been students—for the last four years, students at the University of Texas at Arlington.

But from here on, you will be a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington. It has a nice ring doesn’t it? So enjoy the moment.

It is a great moment, but it is a little scary which is alright because it is supposed to be

I know because long ago but not so far away in the year 1959, shortly after the electric light bulb was invented, I wore a cap and gown just as you are wearing and sat with the others of my class in the Football Stadium at TCU.

I felt all of the emotions that each of you feels today and another emotion that most of you don’t feel: I was terrified and for good reason.

During college I specialized in Spanish. I didn’t major in Spanish, but specialized in it. In other words, I took it, dropped it, took it again, dropped it again over a period of four years.

In all I took nine semesters of Spanish in order to qualify for the required four. The final grades had been mailed so I didn’t know as I stood in line to receive my diploma if I had passed that last semester of Spanish that I needed to graduate and in those days, they actually pulled you out of the line if you didn’t have the required credits that last semester.

So for me, that graduation day became a religious experience. Standing in line that day, I discovered there was a God.

Kindly old Dr. Rominengi who had been my Spanish professor apparently believed that mercy took precedence over justice or maybe it was just because he was tired of looking at me. But for whatever reason, God bless him, he gave me the C that I needed to graduate.

Had he lived to see this day, I’m sure the shock of seeing me speaking at an academic ceremony would have been more than he could handle.

In any case, I say Muchas Gracias to Dr. Romingi and I thank you for having me.

As you leave this campus, you will take for granted many things that I would have found strange or at least very new when I received my diploma in 1959.

Think of this: when I graduated from high school, no black person had attended any public school that I had attended. When I enrolled at TCU no black athlete had ever participated in any sport in the old Southwest conference.

When I graduated in 1959, only the most naïve would have argued that a black man or woman of any color could have competed on equal footing with white males in the work place.

When I came to work at CBS News in 1969, we had only two women in professional positions in the Washington bureau. Today, the majority of those going into journalism are women.

In less than my life time we have moved from a society that not only encouraged but legalized discrimination and bigotry to one in which those things are universally denounced.

As I speak, the country is in the midst of a hard fought and what at times seems to be an endless presidential campaign which also—at times--seems to be about all the wrong things. And sometimes it has been.

There is a lot to criticize about it, and I have not en reluctant to do just that.

But let us never forget the larger story that is unfolding.

In just the span of my lifetime, a man who would not have been allowed to drink at the water fountain where I drank as a child, has emerged as the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In just the span of my lifetime, a woman who once would not have paid equal wages to mine when I was a young reporter—just because she was a woman—has emerged as his main challenger.

And which ever of them wins, will face a true American hero, a man who spent five years as a prisoner in a war that all but tore the country apart.

We have a long way to go in America, but we also have come a very long way and let us never forget that.

It is traditional to offer advice at graduations. I offer only this: There is a great deal of pressure on young people to be successful these days. I urge you not to worry so much about success which to most people success means making a lot of money.

Instead, I hope you will pursue what really excites you, something that you like to do. If you are good at it, success will follow. If you are unsuccessful, you will at least know you did your best. The pursuit of excellence, trying to do something well offers far more satisfaction that the pursuit of success.

Don’t be afraid to reach. And make sure what you decide to do is your decision. It is your life. Not someone else’s.

Don’t worry too much about making mistakes.

At my age, I have to worry about mistakes because the sun in my sky is moving toward the horizon.

Your sun is still in the morning sky. At your age, you have plenty of time to make corrections or just try something else. We get only one trip to planet earth. You don’t want to reach my age, look back and say, I wish I had tried something else.

Don’t be afraid to dream—I suppose all graduation speakers say that—but also understand there will always be those who will belittle your aspirations. Just understand this: those who say it can’t be done, those who are jealous of those who get it done, those who don’t have the imagination to dream or the energy to pursue their dream, will always be there, I still run into them at my age, and the thing to know is, they just don’t matter.

As you begin the next chapter of your life I ask you also to consider this basic question: What DOES constitute success? Beyond that, what is greatness? Are they the same? Are they in any way connected?

We are undergoing a revolution in communications technology. The good news is, we are never out of touch. We know everything—or think we do—instantly.

The bad news is, we are never out of touch. We have little time to reflect and we have created a celebrity driving culture where it is possible to become famous for being famous, where it is easy to confuse celebrity with heroism, or even greatness.

The ability to manufacture fame in the same way we manufacture some commodities has permeated all facets of our culture.

In his memoir, Henry Kissinger observed that the relentless pressure to raise money to get on television has left our politicians no choice but to present themselves as all things to all people, a condition that causes them to being more interested in becoming superstars than heroes.

As he rightly points out, there is a difference. Heroes walk alone. Stars seek public approval. Heroes are driven by inner values, stars by consensus.

I think it is safe to say that greatness has nothing to do with celebrity.

But I would also say to you that greatness is not always defined by success. To the contrary, it can sometimes be the opposite.

True greatness has more to do with the battles we choose to fight than the battles we win.

We remember Sam Houston, the great hero of the Texas revolution for winning the battle of San Jacinto, but to understand the greatness of Houston we must remember as well, the battles he lost.

When big money interests derided him for opposing legislation aimed at forcing the Indians off their land and wondered why he would take on such an unwinnable cause, he rose in the senate with a simple explanation, “Sir, these people are friendless, they have no political influence, they have no hope, no expectations to offer to the ambitious and inspiring.”

In other words, there was no one else to do it and so he did.

Greatness—true character-- has more to do with the lost cause we take as our own on the off chance that we might just win it or the just cause we take only because it is right.

Nor, I have come to believe, does greatness have much to do with the office or the position we hold.

In this age when we so often see those who are willing to say anything or suffer any indignity to hold public office, I again think back to Sam Houston.

He was governor when the country America had come apart during the civil war. There was overwhelming public sentiment to leave the union. The legislature voted to join the confederacy. Houston was told he would be impeached if he failed to swear allegiance to the confederacy.

Houston refused to take the oath and made no effort to stay in office.

He said only, “I am ready to be ostracized. An office has no charm for me that must be purchased at the sacrifice of my conscience and self respect.”

He left and the office was declared vacant. The legislature won the day but it was Houston who won history’s judgment and it is Houston that we remember today.

I am well down the road that you are only beginning to travel but when you come to the place where I now stand, I believe you will find that those you admired the most were those who tried to nurture the human spirit, those who didn’t worry so much about fame but those who offered help where it was needed, those who appealed to the best—rather than the worst in human nature--those who tried to bring people together rather than drive them apart.

In the great tradition of graduation, my words will soon fade from your memory, but remember always why you feel so good today.

It is not because you have a piece of paper that says you have graduated from college.

It is because you set out to do something and you did it.

It is because you enriched your intellect by learning things you didn’t know and enriched your life with friendships that always come from the shared experience of a worthwhile task.

In a time when it is sometimes hard to believe in anything, you have given yourself good reason to believe in yourself.

I leave you with this thought: For all you have learned today, there is one thing you can not know. Until you sit where your parents sit and your children sit where you sit, you can not know how proud your parents are today.

As one who has done just that, I can tell you that of all the things there is to know, that is the very best.

I thank you. The world needs you. God bless you.