Delegates attending the NCAA's 96th annual Convention in Indianapolis were treated to an inspiring opening business session anchored by speeches from NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that emphasized a resolve of American values in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Both speakers cited higher education as a shaper of solid American values and a bridge between cultural gaps.

Dempsey, in what turned out to be his final State of the Association address (Dempsey announced after the Convention that he will retire in December), said that perseverance, discipline and family are values that drive us as a nation, and that all can be found in college sports. (See the full text of Dempsey's speech on page A2 of the Convention insert.)

Rice, who called herself a "big fan" of intercollegiate athletics, became familiar with sports at an early age as the only child of a football coach ("I was supposed to be my father's all-American linebacker," she said). Though she was unable to attend the Convention in person, she appeared via satellite from the White House.

She captured delegates' attention from the start when she told the poignant story of how her grandfather, who was an Alabama sharecropper, sought some "book learning" and was told to see about attending Stillman College, a Presbyterian school in nearby Tuscaloosa. Rice said her grandfather paid his first year's tuition with cotton but didn't have enough for the second year.

He asked administrators how other students were able to attend and was told that several had earned their way through something called scholarships.

"If you want to be a Presbyterian minister," they told him, "We'll give you a scholarship, too."

Rice said her grandfather quickly took his cue and said, "That's just what I had in mind."

"My family has been college educated -- and Presbyterian -- ever since," Rice said.

Finding the passion

Rice, who was the provost at Stanford University for six years and is a professor-on-leave of political science at the school, said the story of her grandfather proves that education is the "great equalizer of circumstances."

"One of the most important values is that it doesn't matter where you came from but where you are going," she said. "Education is the ticket to be successful and to discover yourself.

"I always tell students that while they're in college to find their passion. I thought my passion was to be a concert pianist. But I lacked prodigious talent," Rice grinned, "and I hated to practice. But then I found the Soviet Union in a class."

Rice went on to serve in the first Bush administration as the Senior Director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council.

"Second, I always tell students to challenge themselves," Rice said. "And athletes are best suited to do this. Athletics teaches you that even after a tough game or practice to get up the next day and keep going -- that failures are only temporary and not forever. I learned that as a figure skater. Over and over, I discovered that I just wasn't that good, but I worked hard and tried to become better.

"And finally," Rice said, "education creates a whole new family for you -- the opportunity to know people from all walks of life and all be members of the same team. The friends you make are made because you've bridged different circumstances to discover what is common."

Worst and best of times

As National Security Advisor, Rice commands attention when she talks about September 11, and Convention delegates were riveted by her details of those events.

"When I saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I called President Bush and said, 'What a strange accident,' " she said. "But when I saw the second plane, I knew we were under attack.

"Since then, it's been the worst of times and the best of times," Rice said.

She said the worst of times has been realized in the great sacrifice of life, and because the country has had to come to terms with its own vulnerability ("Splendid isolation is not ours to have," she said).

"But it's been the best of times, though, for Americans to remember who they are and what our country is all about," Rice said. "We learned something about ourselves in that it doesn't matter who we are or where we came from -- we're all Americans.

"It's values that unite us, not some false creed, but our understanding of what it means to be an American."