GILL BECK - 2004 COSIDA ACADEMIC HALL OF FAME CLASS:
Thank you and all of the other Sports Information Directors for what you do to highlight the importance of placing the "student" in "student-athletes" first.
My wife and I will never forget the dinner at Bill Walton's house and the opportunity it provide to both of us to meet so many wonderful people. Getting to know each of you, as well as Terry Hoage, Rolf Benirschke, Dave Remington, Ted LeLand, Dylann Ceriani, Dick Enberg, Bill Walton, and others has made me a better person. Both my wife and I are so thankful for the opportunity CoSIDA provided us.
One of the most important things I learned was that Sports Information Directors are the true unsung heroes of university and college athletic programs. Often working 60-plus hour weeks, Sports Information Directors, place team above self day-in and day-out. Never seeking personal recognition, but always placing their schools first, Sports Information Directors are like the 6th player on basketball teams, the thirteen player on football teams, and the tenth player on baseball teams -- always present, always ready, and always committed to their school's athletic programs.
Always mindful that they represents institutions of higher learning and that intercollegiate athletics is an integral part of the total university program, not the dominating force, Sports Information Directors help us keep perspective in a sports world that has a natural tendency to fixate on winning at all costs. CoSIDA, through your leadership, helps ensure that the balance between winning at all costs and institutional integrity is maintained -- a balance that is so important today and in the future.
Respect for the student-athlete, as CoSIDA, demonstrates through its commitment to academics is especially important because the vast majority of collegiate athletes will not go on to careers in professional sports. With the proper focus, these student-athletes, should graduate not with a sense that they failed because they did not become professional athletes, but rather they should be strengthen and reinforced through the academic and athletic values of their institution so that they can take the lessons learned on football fields, basketball courts, baseball diamonds, tracks, and other playing fields, and become leaders in business, education, law, medicine, engineering, and other fields, and make society a better place because they have learned the true values of sports -- teamwork, the pursuit of excellence, work ethic, service-before-self, and other essential lessons that athletics teach so well.
I realize that this past year had its special challenges, but thank and commend each of you for seeing this process through. I could not think of a more perfect occasion that last Wednesday night at Bill Walton's house.
What you do, every day as Sports Information Directors, is so valuable and so critical. Your emphasis on academics and placing the student first in student-athletes is even more important today than it was in 1975 and 1977 when I was fortunate enough to be selected to your Academic All-American Football Teams, an honor that I will never forget.
Best wishes,
Gill
Gill P. Beck
Assistant United States Attorney
Middle District of North Carolina