Remarks at the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Dinner in New York City

Mr. Chairman and Mr. Toastmaster, Your Eminence Cardinal Cooke, all of the distinguished guests at the head tables and all of the distinguished award winners and all of those who are here on this very momentous occasion:

It would be momentous because of this organization meeting to honor the men that you have honored---and I speak of 'others, of course, than myself but it would be momentous, too, because it is the 100th year of a very great game.

I was trying to think of something that would appropriately describe how I feel in accepting this award. I would have to be less than candid if I were not to say that because of the offices I have held I have received many awards.

But I think Archibald MacLeish, in that perfectly eloquent tribute to football, quoting Secretary of State Dean Acheson [1949-1953], put it very well. He said, "The honors you don't deserve are the ones you are most grateful to receive."

I simply want to set the record straight with regard to my football qualifications. This is a candid, open administration. We believe in telling the truth about football and everything.

I can only say that as far as this award is concerned, that it is certainly a small step for the National Football Foundation and a small step for football, but it is a giant leap for a man who never even made the team at Whittier.

I have looked around that wall, Whittier is not up there, I can assure you. I didn't hear the Whittier song, either, a moment ago. In fact, only the coach from Loyola [Loyola University of Los Angeles] knows where Whittier is. We used to play Loyola.

I got into a game once when we were so far behind it didn't matter. I even got into one against Southern Cal once when we were so far behind it didn't matter.

Now just to tell you a little about Whittier because I want the record to be straight: It is a school with very high academic standing. We had a very remarkable coach.

Today as we pay tribute to the players, I am glad that one of those who made the Hall of Fame is a coach, Bud Wilkinson¹

I pointed out in my acceptance address in Miami that one of the men who influenced me most in my life was my coach and I think that could be true of many public men.

My coach was an American Indian, Chief Newman. He was a perfectly remarkable man and a great leader. I learned more from him about life really than I did about football, but a little about football.

One of the reasons, I guess, he didn't put me in was because I didn't know the plays. Now there was a good reason for that. It wasn't because I wasn't smart enough. I knew the enemy's plays.. I played them all week long. Believe me, nobody in the Southern California Conference knew Occidental's or Pomona's or Redlands' or Cal Tech's or Loyola's plays better than I did, because I was on that side.

I learned a lot sitting by the coach on the bench--learned about football and learned about life.

Incidentally, since this is a night for confession, I want to tell you one thing about Chief Newman. He went to Southern California. He played on Southern California's first Rose Bowl team and that first Rose Bowl team beat Penn State in the only game Penn State ever played in the Rose Bowl.

Now, because Governor [of Pennsylvania Raymond P.] Shafer is here, and because I had an uncle who taught at Penn State and had a very distinguished record, and because somebody suggested that some day I might want to visit the campus--after I have left the Presidency-of Penn State, I can only say that they have a great football team.

As a matter of fact, I was going to suggest that we have a super college bowl after the November or the January 1 games and then I thought I was in deep enough already because look what could happen: Southern Cal could beat Michigan and they would claim they were Number 1; Notre Dame might beat Texas and they would claim they were Number 1; and of course, you never know what would happen with Penn State and Missouri. I understand they are pretty good.

So all that I can say now is this: I understand that Penn State certainly is among those that should be considered for Number 1 in the United States of America.

Now, could I share with you for a moment, in a somewhat serious vein, what football means to me? I think that is what the man who receives this award, particularly one who really doesn't deserve it because of his football prowess, that is something he is expected to do.

First, without talking about those factors that are tremendously important that Archibald MacLeish touched on, the character, all of the great spirit that comes into individuals who either are in the game, participate in it, or watch it, I look back on football and have many pleasant memories. I just enjoyed playing it, watching it, reading about it over the years.

Among all of the people who have been honored tonight, let me just say a good word about sports writers. After all, I must say that this is not an unselfish statement, most sports writers become political writers in the end--"Scotty" Reston, Bob Considine, Bill Henry. So I am just planning for the future.

But, in any event, thinking of sports writers for the moment, they have made football live before the days of television and even now for many who never got to the games.

My first recollection of big-time college football was Ernie Nevers against Notre Dame in 1925--I see Ernie Nevers here. Anti I sat in the stands with Father Hesburgh ² when Southern Cal played and lost to Notre Dame, and I know the great spirit between those two schools. But I remember that game. I remember the score. I think it was 25 to 10, or four touchdowns to a touchdown and a field goal, and I remember that the sports writers, Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times, and others were writing about the game, wrote about one play where Nevers went through the line close to the goal and there was a dispute as to, whether he went over and was pushed back.

I wondered whether or not, with the replays we have on television, the game might have turned out differently if we had had television in 1925. I am not saying it would, Father Hesburgh. I have got enough trouble with Penn State. I don't want any with Notre Dame.

Then my memory goes on, just to share them with you, and interestingly enough I remember performances by men who lost as well as those who won. That is rather natural, I am sure you can understand.

The first Rose Bowl game I saw was between one of the great Howard Jones' teams of the early thirties and Jock Sutherland's Pitt team. Pitt was overmanned. They had a fine quarterback in Warren Heller, a good passer. And Howard Jones had a team that beat them 35 to 0.

But my memories of that team were not of the awesome power of Howard Jones' team moving down with the unbalanced single wing going down, down, down the field and scoring again and again with that tremendous blocking, but of two very gallant Pittsburgh ends, Stedani and Dailey.

For the first half, I remember they plowed into that awesome USC interference and knocked it down time and time again and held the score down. The game was lost, but I remember right to the last they were in there fighting and that spirit stayed with me as a memory; and the years go on.

I think of another game, Southern Cal and Duke, 1938. I had attended Duke University for law school, and I remember that Duke came there undefeated, untied, unscored upon. The score was 3 to 0 going into the last few minutes of the game. So out came a fourth-string quarterback, not a third-string, Doyle Nave, and he threw passes as they throw them today, one after another, to Al Kreuger, an end from Antelope Valley, California. And finally Southern California scored. It was 7 to 3.

I must say that I was terribly disappointed, of course, but the woman who was to be my future wife went to Southern Cal and that is how it all worked out. We met at that game.

The years go on and I am not going to bore you with more of my own recollections, except to give you a feel of what football has meant to me as a spectator, and college football particularly.

I remember some Ohio State games. I recall going to Ohio State to a football game, and until you have been in Columbus to see an Ohio State game--in fact, until I went to Fayetteville, Arkansas, I thought the Columbus crowds were the most exciting. But in any event, that year, I think it was about 1958, I went there with Senator John Bricker [Senator from Ohio 1947-1959]. Iowa had a great team. They were a favorite over Ohio State.

They led going into the last quarter. Woody Hayes--in those days, it was just 3 yards and a cloud of dust--he didn't have the passers. But he had a great big fullback by the name of White and he ran him, starting at the 35-yard line of Ohio State, ten different times over the same hole in the Iowa line, going off the left side, until they scored, and they won the game 17 to 14.

If you think enthusiastic crowds developed in other places, you ought to see an Ohio State crowd when they beat anybody.

But in any event, on through the years, I come to more recent years, years that these younger men here will remember and recall with the same zest and enthusiasm, I am sure, that I do.

This year, 1969--certainly of all the hundred years of football none could be more exciting. There were never so many great teams, never so many Saturdays when the favorite could not be sure that he was going to come through, never so many times when a team that was behind came on to win or tie in the last quarter.

I am referring, of course, to Southern Cal, what they did to UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles].

If you talk to somebody from UCLA they say it should not have happened. So, watch out, Michigan, for Southern Cal; it could happen. I am not predicting now. I have had enough trouble with Penn State. I don't want any with Michigan. Before I get through I will only have friends in Texas and I didn't carry Texas. So let's not talk any further about that.

But now, one serious moment. Archibald MacLeish did say what I wish I could have written about what football means to this country, what it means to me as an individual, what it means to me as one who is serving as President of the United States. I can only tell you that in the Cabinet Room there are the pictures of three men whom I consider to be great Presidents: President Eisenhower, president Woodrow Wilson, President Theodore Roosevelt. There were other great ones, but these three in this century, I consider to be among the great presidents.

All of them had one thing in common. They were very different men: Eisenhower, the great general; Theodore Roosevelt, the tremendous extrovert, explorer, writer, one of the most talented men of our time in so many fields; Woodrow Wilson, probably the greatest scholar who has ever occupied the Presidency, a man with the biggest vocabulary of any President in our history, in case you want to put it down in your memory book•

But each of them had a passion for football. Woodrow Wilson, when he taught at Wesleyan [Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.] used to talk about the spirit of football, and later on when he was president of Princeton, he insisted on scholarship, but he recognized and tried to encourage football.

T. R. was dictating a speech one day, a very important one. He got a call telling of two of his sons participating in a prep school game which they had won. He dropped the speech and ran shouting for joy to his wife and said, "They won, they won!"

I remember President Eisenhower talking to me after his heart attack. He said one of the things he hated to give up was that the doctor said he should not listen to those football games because he got too excited and became too involved.

What does this mean, this common interest in football of Presidents, of leaders, of people generally? It means a competitive spirit. It means, also, to me, the ability and the determination to be able to lose and then come back and try again, to sit on the bench and then come back• It means basically the character, the drive, the pride, the teamwork, the feeling of being in a cause bigger than yourself.

All of these great factors are essential if a nation is to maintain character and greatness for that nation. So, in the 100th year of football, as we approach the 200th year of the United States, remember that our great assets are not our military strength or our economic wealth, but the character of our young people, and I am glad that America's young people produce the kind of men that we have in American football today.

I close on a note that will tell you why I think Texas deserved to be Number 1. It was not because they scored the second touchdown, but it was because after the first touchdown when they were ahead [behind] 14 to 0, the coach sent in a play. They executed the play and they went for two. When they went for two and the score was 18 [8] to 14, they moved the momentum in their direction. They were not sure to win because Arkansas still had a lot of fight left and I remember that great Arkansas drive in those last few minutes. But Texas, by that very act, demonstrated the qualities of a champion, the qualities to come back when they were behind and then when they could have played it safe just to tie, they played to win.

This allows me to tell a favorite anecdote of mine in the world of sports. In another field, one of the great tennis players of all time, of course--the first really big tennis player in terms of the big serve and the rest, in our time--was Bill Tilden.

When he was coaching, after he completed his playing years, a young player had won a match in a minor tournament and won it rather well. He came off the court and expected Tilden to say something to him in words of congratulation, and Tilden didn't.

The player said to him, "What is the matter, I won, didn't I?" Tilden said, "Yes, you won, but playing that way you will never be a champion, because you played not to lose. You didn't play to win."

That is what America needs today. What we need in the spirit of this country and the spirit of our young people is not playing it safe always, not being afraid of defeat---being ready to get into the battle and playing to win, not with the idea of destroying or defeating or hurting anybody else, but with the idea of achieving excellence.

Because Texas demonstrated that day that they were playing to win, they set an example worthy of being Number 1 in the 100th year of college football.

Thank you.