Perhaps true, but, sadly, even if you make the mistake when you're 18 there are some things you can't live down. I didn't say I wanted to remember the cheap shot everytime I watch him play but that doesn't mean I can stop it. Perhaps he'll prove me wrong and if he goes his whole career without another cheap shot I will change my mind about him, perhaps. But for now, I think of him as a guy who would pull something like that and I do expect it to happen again.
I think it is fair to say that it should be in consideration for label of "worst graduation speech of all time."
Had to be bad to best former President George Bush's commencement address in 1998.
Looks like we moved up to a new version of the board software. What should loyal DBR readers expect (aside from a subtly changed posting interface and a dramatically changed User CP)?
I was trying to search earlier today, and one no longer has to answer correctly a Duke-related question. One simply has to type the string of characters in a field to the right.
The trouble is, I kept getting a message stating that I did not answer the question correctly. HUH? Did I just hit it at a bad time?
On the bright side, it's a little easier to post links within a message.
Would still like some of the emoticons from snrubchat...
Looks like an improvement.
Cheers,
Lavabe
Is tagging new? I added some to the thread I started
Worst graduation speech? Where I used to teach many moons ago, we had Henry Kissinger. His remarks might have actually been interesting if you could have stayed awake through the drone. Sad, actually.
How about Ken Starr giving a 1.5 hour speech on Whitewater for graduation. That was piss poor.
Practically every Duke graduate thinks that their graduation speech was the worst of all time.
All course, all of y'all are wrong, unless you were in my graduating class. 1984, Katharine Graham.
At the very least most of the people listed above were interesting people. I don't know who gave this year's address, but 2007 was the GM CEO. Uh...
In my opinion, Duke has really been whiffing on graduation speakers the last few years, setting aside how good a speaker they actually are.
On a more positive note, I thought the student speakers did an excellent job.
I understand there were many "memorable" graduation speeches in the past but this years may have raised (lowered) the bar to a record that may stand for centuries.
Duke doesn't get as many high profile speakers because they don't pay for them. Even small schools like Middlebury got Bill Clinton a couple years ago because they pay big bucks. Although admittedly we did get Kofi Annan (although I think he didn't end up showing) and Madeline Albright fairly recently. Our last four speakers were only because of their relation to Duke. Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile, got his PhD at Duke. John Hope Franklin is a Duke professor. Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM, is a Duke grad, a Duke father, on the board of trustees (or used to, at least), and is head of financial aid initiative. And Barbara Kingsolver is a Duke parent (daughter is class of 2009). Her speech was pretty political at times - went on and on about green energy for a while. I think Wagoner was much better. I think last year's student speaker (the Blue Devil mascot) was better than the student speakers this year as well. Although the students this year were good as well, just not as good. Do they really need such a long introduction from Lange though? Sorry for continuing the hijacking of this thread....
If I mentioned that "W" will be the commencement speaker at Furman this year will that move it to the Public Policy board?
It's true and some interesting discussions are developing among the faculty and students.