First – a thank you from all of us receiving this honor tonight – to all of you for coming – to the Varsity Club and SU athletics – to all Orange supporters - and especially to family and friends without whom I think we’d all agree it would be pretty difficult to accomplish much of anything. The fact that you’ve been there – and are here tonight – means a great deal.
Being a collegiate athlete of course is a terrific experience. It is also very prestigious. Especially when you participate in what we used to call a “minor” sport but now we cleverly call an “Olympic” sport – such as rowing. That’s what the coaches told us anyhow. I remember when I was a freshman we were told that crew guys were liked and respected by professors and by the opposite sex. Yep- you’ll get good grades and you’ll get girls. In my freshman year we still had the awful tradition in which - during spring camp – which then was held at the boathouse…in the snow – the upperclassmen would wrestle us out of the bunk room upstairs and into a training room on the first floor, where they would use electric barber’s clippers to cut all our hair off. They didn’t shave it. They just cut it REALLY short. As close to shaving as it gets. So, we survived it and when we got back on campus for classes after spring break, here we are looking like a nest of newly hatched buzzards. And a young woman in my class – whom I would have loved to ask out – asked me what happened to my hair. “I’m on the crew team” I proudly told her. “How do you play crew? “she inquired. I did not get the date. 1