The NCAA News - News and Features

January 19, 1998

NCAA CONVENTION -- Association's honors dinner links best of present with past

BY DAVID PICKLE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE NCAA NEWS

ATLANTA -- On a night when the best of the past of college athletics intersected with the best of the present, the NCAA recognized 16 current and former student-athletes with its highest awards.

Former Sen. Robert J. Dole, who was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Award during the January 11 program, reminded the audience that the first winner of the Teddy was his boyhood hero, and fellow Kansan, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Indeed, ties with the past were apparent throughout the night.

Football player Brian Griese, a Today's Top VIII recipient, is the son of Bob Griese, who won a Silver Anniversary Award in 1992.

Swimmer Gary Hall, a Silver Anniversary honoree, was at the head table for a second time. He was a Top V winner in 1974.

CBS newsman Harry Smith, a Silver Anniversary winner, was master of ceremonies for the honors dinner in 1995. Silver Anniversary winner Drew Pearson joined four teammates from Dallas Cowboys teams of the 1960s and 1970s (Bob Lilly, Lee Roy Jordan, Roger Staubach and Calvin Hill) who also had received Silver Anniversary recognition.

Finally, the Award of Valor -- not presented for 14 years -- was presented posthumously to an athlete who died trying to save a child from drowning. Shannon Smith, the 1998 honoree, drowned under heroic circumstances that were similar to those of Joe Delaney, who received the last Award of Valor in 1984.

In his acceptance speech, Dole looked all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt himself, describing a man who loved a vigorous life and who rose above frequent difficulties to inspire Americans to live quality lives.

He said if Roosevelt were with us today, he would challenge citizens to go beyond financial comfort and to seek greater fulfillment.

"It's become the norm for candidates to ask, 'Are we better off than we were four years ago?' " Dole said. "But we should be asking, 'Are we better?' Do we demand as much of ourselves as we should?' "

He invoked the words of Roosevelt as a model for life: "Don't flinch, don't foul and hit the line hard."

Pearson, who graduated from the University of Tulsa, accepted on behalf of the other Silver Anniversary winners. They were Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington; Lawrie Mifflin, Yale University; Cynthia Potter, Indiana; Sally Ride, Stanford University; and Smith.

Pearson spoke of the toughening process that student-athletes must endure, both athletically and educationally.

"Do we think that student-athletes are better than others?" he asked. "I don't think so. But not everybody can handle the demands that are placed on us."

Peyton Manning, football player from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, set the tone for the evening with a superb acceptance speech on behalf of the Top VIII winners. The others were Lisa Coole, University of Georgia; Carrie E. Ferguson, Capital University; Griese; Kasey A. Morlock, North Dakota State University; Obadele O. Thompson, University of Texas at El Paso; Meredith Willard, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; and Grant Wistrom, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Manning told the audience that the athletics experience "has a lot more to do with learning than with winning." Lessons such as sacrifice, sharing responsibility and time management are learned well by successful student-athletes.

Speaking from his own experience, Manning said he could have been a student without being an athlete, or an athlete without being a student, but "that it wouldn't have been as joyous." Student-athletes, he said, are better leaders for the experiences they gain.

Rosemary Smith accepted the Award of Valor for her son, and she was obviously moved by the recognition. "As parents who were suffering," she said, "our great loss was compounded by the fear that his act would be forgotten."

Shannon's selfless act was to jump into a whirlpool in Hawaii and, while tiring to the point of exhaustion, pull endangered children to safety. One of the children was the 6-year-old son of the Hawaii football coach.

Rosemary Smith described a son who was devoted to making children happy -- coaxing an autistic child into speaking his first words, befriending homeless children and making an effort to talk with a young cancer patient whose friends had shunned him when his disease had made him different from them.

"I feel," she said, "like I was touched by an angel."