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Rebecca Lobo tells graduates to dream bigby Sherry Fisher and Elizabeth Omara-Otunnu - May 19, 2008
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| “I’m a living testament to the power of delusional thinking,” Rebecca Lobo told graduating students during undergraduate commencement exercises in Gampel Pavilion on May 11.
“When I was a kid, I was foolish enough to think that I could play professional basketball in the U.S.,” she said. “Silly enough to think I could participate in the Olympics. Sufficiently delusional to believe I might one day broadcast ballgames for a living.” Lobo, a UConn trustee and the forward/center on UConn’s undefeated and national champion 1995 women’s basketball team, gave the Commencement address to some 2,400 undergraduates in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The ceremony started late as an unprecedented number of students attended the event and filled just about every seat. Lobo told the crowd that she missed her own graduation because she was trying out for the Olympic basketball team. “I feel like an honorary member of the Class of ’08,” said Lobo, who was gold medalist in the 1996 Olympics and is a women’s basketball analyst, working on broadcasts for CBS and ESPN. She said she owed much of her success to “the University of Connecticut, whose reach, you will discover, is infinite.” Lobo told the audience that several months after graduating from UConn, she was invited to Washington to jog with President Clinton. “When we were done running, two other sweaty joggers and I rode back to the White House with the President in his limousine,” she said. “Halfway through the 15-minute ride, I realized that this didn’t look too good. We’re all sweaty and all the windows were fogged up.” Lobo also recalled the concerns of one of her grade school teachers. “When I was in fifth grade, a teacher told me, ‘Rebecca, I’m really worried about you. Your grades are fine, but you need to act more like a girl. You need to dress more like a girl.’ I was the only girl who played with the boys at recess and ate with the boys at lunch, because they were my friends. Looking back, I was just way ahead of my time.” She said she hoped to raise her daughters “to believe they can be anything they want to be – anything except a Yankees fan.” Her comment elicited some boos, which made Lobo laugh. She said she had a bet with her husband that it was possible for her to have people boo at her on her home court of Gampel Pavilion. Lobo told the audience “never mistake what you do for who you are. I understand that people will always associate me with basketball. I’m 6-foot-4 – with the funny hat, 6-foot-5. And I cherish my four years at UConn. But I’m happiest watching my daughters dancing in their diapers in the kitchen." “People say college is the best four years of your life,” she said. “But I can tell you on this Mother’s Day, they are not. The best years of your life are still ahead of you. That’s why they call this commencement.” She added, “It’s time to realize your dreams. It’s time to change the world.”
Graduate ceremony Don’t regard your degrees as a closed chapter but go on learning, Wills told graduate degree candidates. Wills addressed master’s and doctoral students and their families and friends, during the graduate Commencement ceremony. “Surely when you have a graduate degree, you have a right to say your education is finished, but it isn’t,” he said. “Knowing is not a lump of accumulated data. It is a process. … It must always be renewed and expanded in order to exist at all. “Your teachers have failed you, and you have failed yourselves,” he added, “if you think the education process is ended, if you do not go on learning, testing what you know, expanding what you know.” Wills has written more than two dozen books on theology, U.S. political history, and 20th century popular culture. He won the National Medal for the Humanities in 1998. “Ask yourself who are the most interesting people you know,” he said. “Odds are that they are the ones still learning, still curious, still seeking.” Wills, who holds an MA and Ph.D. in classics as well as a master’s in philosophy, recalled that when he was arrested during a demonstration against the Vietnam War, he took a copy of the Greek New Testament to jail. He said learning Greek is the most economical intellectual investment that can be made, because so many of the world’s great thinkers were trained in the study of ancient civilization. While not advocating that everyone learn Greek, he said, “To stay intellectually alive you must keep learning something. … This is not an assignment. It’s an enticement. It’s fun.” Wills received an honorary doctorate of letters degree during the ceremony, as did women’s rights activist Charlotte Bunch and alumnus and philanthropist Gary Gladstein. Also recognized were math professor Evarist Giné-Masdeu, University Research Fellow; Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors Richard Bass, professor of math, Cheryl Beck, professor of nursing, and Dipak Dey, professor of statistics; and University Medal-winner Samuel Kalmanowitz, an alumnus and founder of the award-winning Kay’s Pharmacy. Other ceremonies Additionally, the Army and Air Force ROTC programs held commissioning ceremonies. The remaining schools – law and medicine and dental medicine— celebrated their graduations May 18. |
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