 Good afternoon. Welcome. I'm Michael Barr, the Joan and Sandy Wilde, Dean of Public Policy at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. With me on stage today are distinguished speakers, Paul Tagliaboo, Jim Hackett, and Ward Manuel. I'm going to give you lots of chances to clap as I introduce them individually in just a moment. I want to say a special welcome to University Vice President Jerry May and our other distinguished guests. We're honored to have you all here. And, of course, it's a tremendous privilege to recognize our guest of honor, philanthropist, civic leader J. Ira Harris. Ira's son Jonathan is here with us as well. Welcome. Let me just say the generosity of Ira and his wife Nikki has deeply strengthened the University of Michigan. Among their many gifts over many years, the family created the J. Ira and Nikki Harris family professor of public policy at the Ford School and the Harris Center for the Study of Corporate Finance in the Ross School. They've demonstrated their love for U of M Athletics too, with a gift to renovate the football locker room and a gift to support students, facilities, and the football program. In their honor, our football coach's full title is the J. Ira and Nikki Harris family head football coach. But it goes back even further. Thirty years ago in 1987, a young Jim Harbaugh graduated from Michigan and was drafted by the Chicago Bears. He was a young man headed out into the world into a big city for his first professional job. His coach, Bo Schembechler, called his good friend Ira Harris, who lived in Chicago at that time, and he asked Ira to look out for Jim. Ira, with his trademark warmth and generosity of spirit, did just that and a lot more, starting with opening a bank account for the young graduate that helped Harbaugh write out the rough months before he'd get his first paycheck. And now 30 years later, Coach Harbaugh is, of course, the J. Ira and Nikki Harris family head football coach. Generosity and warmth come full circle. On behalf of the University of Michigan, thank you, Ira, for the love that you and your family have shown to this great institution. It is an honor of Ira that we've put together today's event on sports and social policy. It's no secret that we live in challenging times, times of divisiveness and rancor in our public dialogue, our politics and our communities. All too often, our elected leaders seem only to reflect those divisions back at us, or worse, to foster and to deepen them. At the Ford School, we're committed to helping rebuild civil, bipartisan, inclusive dialogue, a civil discourse based on the values that our namesake, President Gerald Ford, cherished. Our students today train in public policy analysis, in ethics and in leadership. They want to make an impact in the world. You could say they major in making a difference. And they learn to listen. We're launching a series of events at the Ford School that will bring people who disagree with each other together for respectful, productive dialogue. And in my view, sports can help that conversation. Colin Kaepernick took a knee. Many followed this fall. Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, high school players and cheerleaders this year. Jerry Ford and Willis Ward in 1934. Throughout our history, sports has been a locus for protest, an impetus for change, the spark for conversation and dialogue. Sports can serve as a unifying force. It can help us come together as a country, to be patriotic by fighting racism and sexism and bigotry. Throughout their lives and their careers, our three speakers have embodied and practiced that value. Paul Taglia-Boo's career in sports began in Jersey City, where he's a star basketball player in high school. On scholarship at Georgetown University, Taglia-Boo led a team in rebounds for two consecutive years, was captain in his senior year, as well as class president. Paul went on to earn his JD and practice law for 20 years, serving as counsel to the NFL. In 1989, Paul became NFL commissioner. Under Taglia-Boo's leadership, the NFL prospered. When Paul stepped down as commissioner in 2006, an NPR host said that, quote, Mr. Taglia-Boo is regarded as the best commissioner of any sport of all time. An important part of that success was his abiding commitment to the values of equity and inclusion. Taglia-Boo moved the Super Bowl away from Arizona after the state refused to acknowledge Martin Luther King Jr. a day as an official holiday, for example. In following his NFL leadership, Taglia-Boo is advocated for strengthening the educational mission of college sports as part of the Knight Commission and contributed to the civil rights efforts of parents, families and friends of lesbians and gays. Paul, I want to thank you for being with us here today. Jim Hackett was born just west of Columbus, Ohio. Despite that, views his Midwestern upbringing is central to his identity. Jim earned a degree in finance from the University of Michigan after playing on the Michigan football team as a third string offensive lineman. Then head coach Bo Schembeckler once told a spirited Hackett that he was too slow and too small to be a starting center. I think that's right. Pretty accurate. I mean what he said, not the facts. But Bo went on to say that his contribution to the practice squad was invaluable. Hackett went on to serve that team in that role with pride. After college, Jim joined Skillcase, the storied Grand Rapids-based furniture manufacturer. Working his way up the ranks to become CEO, Hackett would eventually make Skillcase into one of America's most admired companies. In the press, Hackett's name is nearly always printed next to words like visionary, innovative, transformational. After retiring as CEO in 2013, Hackett returned to the University of Michigan. As interim athletic director, Hackett made the blockbuster hire of Jim Harbaugh and ignited a new era in Michigan football. We at the Ford School also want to personally thank Jim for his decade long service on our committee and for helping us to tell and honor the story of President Ford's commitment to diversity, openness, and inclusion. After departing Michigan Athletics, Jim became head of Ford Motor Company's Smart Mobility Division and then Ford named Jim Hackett as its CEO. So he's a pretty busy guy. Jim, thank you for being here today. And finally, our moderator, University of Michigan Athletic Director, Ward Manuel. Like Jim, Ward played football here at Michigan under Bo. Ward went on to get an MBA and a master's in social work here at Michigan as well. He co-authored path-breaking articles in sociology and in psychology on the role of diversity in athletics. He's remembered by our faculty from that time as a brilliant researcher who was clearly destined for big things. And he found his path here at Michigan. He rose through the ranks of the University of Michigan's athletic department, rocked it at AD at SUNY Buffalo and UConn, and then the University of Michigan welcomed him back home in 2016. One of his first moves as athletic director here at Michigan got little attention, but it set a tone and was emblematic of his principal leadership. It turns out that from 1973 to 1991, women who earned varsity letters from Michigan were given a lesser version of the classic letter jacket than men received. No leather sleeves, no iconic block M. For years that had been a sore spot for many, a reminder of past inequities. A plan to rectify the situation was hatched in part by Jim Hackett. And just weeks after his return, Ward and his team pulled it off. Over 700 women received their proper letter jackets, many of them hand-delivered by current student athletes. Ward, thank you for your leadership. And with that, let's get started. I'm gonna get off the stage and Ward, the floor is yours. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. Thank you all for being here today. And I want to join Michael in thanking Ira and also his better half, Nikki, for their generous support of not only this series, but of Michigan, Michigan athletics. It's people like Ira, his family now, John, who make Michigan a better place. And I just want to join in thanking you, Ira, for the support of this series. Please give him a round of applause. I want to start the conversation today with Jim. Since we're here at a Ford school program, I have benefited in from hearing you tell a story of President Ford and his relationship with his teammate, Willis Ward, in how the relationship really shaped President Ford's views on social policy. As someone who is a friend of President Ford like you were, you were able to hear firsthand about their relationship. So could you talk about your friend, the friendship between Ford and Ward, what their friendship tells us about the power of sports? And lastly, talk about the Jersey design element that you worked with, Nike, to symbolize what they mean to Michigan. You bet. And it's honor to be here, to be with the Harris's and my friend, Paul Taglibu. This story has been told a lot, and there's a part that you don't know. And the part is it actually starts with my dad, who played for that school in Columbus. He was an all American in 1944. Later helped Paul Brown bring the Bengals to Cincinnati. And when I was a kid, I was the youngest of four boys. We were in a town that was very diverse. I was on teams that were highly integrated, felt really natural to me. And my dad's best friend from college would come by. There were two of them. One was white, one was black. The black man, Paul will know his name was Bill Willis. He was really arguably maybe the first NFL drafted. There's an argument whether it was a defensive back or Bill. First black player drafted. And Bill ended up becoming head of the Ohio Youth Commission, had a great career. And my dad one day was telling me the story about how they roomed together on the road and they went south to play a game and they weren't going to let Bill stay in the hotel. And so my dad decided to leave the hotel as well and refused to play the game. Turns out the coach got involved. They didn't sell it for Bill. They got my dad back in the game. And I grew up with the standard in my head about my father. I come to Michigan and part of the program here. I graduate. I do all the things that Michael said so kind about me. And I'm hearing this story about President Ford. And it's a story about President Ford. There was only one black player on his team in the 30s named Willis Ward. I apologize. And Willis goes to a game. I don't want to pick on the Southern School because, you know, that's not fair either. They go south and they won't let him play in the game in the 30s. President Ford is the captain of the team and he quits. And he refuses to play the game because that's his best friend. He roomed with him on the road as well. And you can't imagine how stark that was that it hit me that these two people had such admiration for my father. And Gerald Ford were both in this setting. And as I was athletic director, I thought how would I have handled that? You know, did I have the soul and the spirit to stand up for one of my teammates like that? I wish I could say that. I never was confronted with that, fortunately. But I thought the history of that's too important and it's too important for two reasons. If you played a sport in your life where there was an integrated team, you wouldn't trade that for anything. Because no matter what you read or you feel that if you weren't in that, there's no more community than that team together. There's no divide. There's no light between racism and patriotism. These are just your teammates. And we were designing the jersey for the new Nike thing. And one of the things we wanted to do was to have a uniform, what we called design language across the university. Before this initiative with Nike, the strategy by sport was different. Each coach kind of designed their own system. We wanted to have one system. And we happened to look back at the picture of Willis Ward and the president in their team picture. It's very important because there's all these white players and one black player and President Ford as the captain is sitting in the center. His number was 48. And his four has a little hat to it. In other words, it doesn't point. It actually tips to the side. And just coincidentally, the four is pointed this way, four, eight. And Willis Ward's right here. And it's pointing to his teammate. And I'm staring at that and I go, there's a really important message is that I grew up having two people tell me this story. How do I tell that story to every teammate that's here at Michigan? One thing we could tell them is that we kept that font, that four, to tell the story that when you're on a team, the highest sense of participation is you don't think of yourself, you think of a person that's next to you. And so that four is pointing to his teammate. So we made the decision to make that the standard in all sports. And my dream was is that the young people on campus would hear that story and then they would tell as seniors, they would tell the freshman of why that four points to your teammate and the underpinnings of what it meant about diversity and inclusion in its day when it was not easily mediated that it was highly controversial. And so I'm inspired to even tell you that. And I appreciate you asking me that story. No, well, well, thank you for sharing it always. It really teaches us all I think about the importance of people in your lives and regardless of the color of your skin and how you defend and and protect. So thank you for that. As Michael talked about sports are at the heart of many policy debates in our history that don't directly relate to athletics. In the 50s, the start of civil rights movement in a Michigan alum branch, Ricky brought Jackie Robinson to integrate Major League Baseball. In the 70s, there were title nine was enacted into the law and the great Billie Jean King and other women led the fights for equal rights. Now we have a debate over First Amendment rights versus disrespecting the flag. So Paul, how much has and how much will sports continue in your opinion to influence social policy and and or law and or politics? Will you ask me that question yesterday? And I said it was complicated. And I repeat the same thing today. It's complicated. You know, I can't tell. I think sports have had an enormous impact on diversity and inclusion. And on our relationships with each other, whatever race, color, creed, etc. And I start by thinking about John Thompson at my alma mater, Georgetown. The only thing we have in common as basketball players, we will the same number. And my number is retired. It's in the Hall of Fame, but it only got there after he wore it. But he had such an enormous impact on the Georgetown community. And on the District of Columbia, our nation's capital, because of what he stood for in terms of accepting people on the merits, demanding the best is focused on education. And so so I have to start by saying I think athletes and sports can have an enormous positive effect on communities starting with that community at Georgetown. On the other end of the spectrum, you have to ask yourself why it took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for some institutions to start hiring in the professional ranks, black athletes, and some educational institutions from having black athletes, student athletes. I was amazed to see some statistic recently some fact sheet recently that said that the first African American athletes in the Atlanta Coast Conference were at the University of Maryland in 1966. That's four years after I graduated from college, two years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, 12 years after Brown versus the Board of Education, we still had not black athletes in the Atlanta Coast Conference, and not much picking on the Atlanta Coast Conference. But so in some ways, I think of the issue a little more broadly than athletes, think about entertainment, think about how Harry Bellafonte go back and think about Paul Robeson and Fritz Pollard, who were two great college football players in 1918, 1919, 1920. Fritz Pollard was a black coach in the NFL in the first, second and third years of the NFL 1921, 1922. But it wasn't until 1946 that we had Paul Brown bring players into the All American Conference, including Bill Willis, who I think played for him in Maslow High School. He played with them at Iowa State and then with the Cleveland Browns as well. So so in some ways, I look at Jackie Robinson coming in in 47 in baseball, black athletes in the NFL in 46. Was that because the military became more diverse through World War Two? Did they produce that outcome? Fast forward to the Civil Rights Act. Was it because of Wilma Rudolph in the Rome Olympics in 1960? Or was it because of other forces in society? So, you know, we're all woven together in the best of circumstances in America. That's the melting pot. That's that's our society. So when I when I try to say was it Joe Lewis? Or was it something else? Was it was it the military? Was it Truman's executive order in 1948 that produced a flood of players from gambling and other places and led to duffy darty at Michigan State had the most amazing draft in the history of the NFL for the first eight players drafted in 1967, African American kids playing for Michigan State has never been repeated anywhere in the NFL. So it's a long winded way of saying I don't know the answer. But I do know that we need to keep working at it. We need to keep providing an environment and creating environments, which is what I think my successor Commissioner Goodell is doing now with the NFL players, trying to figure out what is the institutional model that enables a sports league to have its athletes be leaders in society on tough societal issues. That's not what leagues are designed to be. But he's working at that and I commend him for it. And that's that's the opportunity we have. And I think the young men today and women are better prepared to be leaders in society than ever before. And so I think we all need to make sure they have the resources and the institutions to give them the opportunity to do what they're doing in an environment where celebrity is not always an asset. Right. We learned that. Some people learn that in the last presidential election, where, you know, celebrity is resented. And sometimes for good reasons, because sometimes it's hollow. But celebrity is not the key to the kingdom. Hard work, good ideas, and institutional support is the key to the kingdom. No, great answer. And Jim, you've led now. This is your second time leading to multinational companies. And so when you think about what's going on in sports, does it have an impact in the corporate world? It does. But can I add one thing? Yeah, please go ahead. Well, Ward's Ward wouldn't would not brag about his daughter, who's a second year med student here. And it brings to mind when he was giving you those dates in the 60s. You and I as you as athletic director, me and as the athletic director, and Bo Schembecker would have told us that there was a flow of talent north, you know, because, because people could play unimpeded. And then Paul, I learned that Michigan had, and I'm sorry, this should I should have more respect for her name, that there was an African American woman, first doctor, graduate from Michigan in 1876, which is only 12 years after emancipation proclamation, you know, which is kind of pretty stark if you think about how profound that is here at the University of Michigan. So the university's this, I'm sharing the, the insight about why I wanted to be here when I came. For a lot of other great reasons, I was in seeking out that diversity that I grew up with in Ohio, I wanted to come to university where it was was highly regarded. And I'm not, I'd have to say, President Schlissel's done such a wonderful job of getting at the heart of the issues here on campus about how people feel about diversity. And I see some regression there, you know, that's hard to hear and hard to see when the students say they don't feel at times included and I know we're working on that. But the business side of this, I'm proud to this is, I would say, in addition to that number four, a second thing that I would like to share is when Lee Bollinger was president here, and we were in the midst of the Supreme Court case, there was a group of us, President Ford, in history went to the generals and asked them to write a letter to the Supreme Court Justice O'Connor about the power of diversity in the military. And Paul has some stats that you should hear today about that. And back then the present these generals were saying without diversity, we would be nowhere. This is back in the Supreme Court case of Michigan, I got a group of CEOs together, we got 150 CEOs to sign an amicus brief to confirm that there was no way we could compete without diversity. So we need the flow of graduates. Okay, now with that kind of pounding our chest, there's some bad news. I was just sharing with Chan Taglibu, a study that McKinsey did on women at large that progressed through business. So we still don't have enough women CEOs. I know them all almost in Fortune 50. They're about 17% of the population of CEOs today. They're 52% of the population. Women of color are 3% of the CEO population. So it's like nonexistent. And so as proud as I am of business's ability to be broad minded in that citation about the Michigan case, what is it about the women and women of color that we haven't addressed? So you know, we're working on really hard on that. And and it starts with the principle of you've got to get instead of I mean, it's okay to recruit people from each other. So companies will go out and recruit diverse talent from Ford to come to be in their company. You know, I'm not in the way of that. That's free trade. But but I think it's a bigger commitment to grow the capability build pipeline. Yeah. And so it's why I asked Ward today, how can I get a sense of the women athletes here at Michigan women of color athletes that are destined for business and I could do a better job of helping them see the potential careers that we have. So I want you to see we made progress on one level and we're still behind another. So I think there's an incentive here to be better. Yeah, well, I'll have those names of those ladies in front of you will start the internship program. The Ford Motor Company Athletic Michigan Athletic Department internship program. We'll start that next week. We start working that you know, this let's stick for a moment because technology is impacting us all in a in a very significant way. And you're you're at the center of it even at Steelcase you I remember when we were building the academic center the Ross Academic Center and you were talking about how you're looking at design of technology. You were in charge now you're in charge of the entire company. You were in charge of autonomous vehicles before. So I'm gonna take this away from sports for a second. It really from a policy standpoint, since we're here at the the Ford School of Public Policy. What are some of the things that you look at as you look at I'm going to develop these autonomous vehicles? What are the policy implications that you you deal with and you talk about and think about as it relates to our society and how to to move us in that direction? Well, let me because my check comes from Ford Motor Company. I'm going to answer sincerely the objective that we have but I also want to talk about why I'm sitting here with you and Paul and a way to think about that that challenge. The Ford Motor Company principle is that these are rolling computers and they're very sophisticated. In fact, I'm just on a fast company video where the guy interviewed me for an hour about that and you can see it but it's it the ability to comprehend how complex these machines are going to be is something we've never seen in in our lifetime. Okay, because the the power of the deep learning algorithms for the machine to learn the way I explain it is these vehicles will be on a street one day and a mitten is in the street and it has to know that there might be a child nearby because that's the way we would think. The next day imagine a baseball rolls in front of it. It has to know again that there's an association there might be a child. The third day it sees a leaf and it stops. That would be a mistake, right? But it it started to learn that anything in front of it that wasn't pavement or a person or excuse me a stop sign or something like that that it could move. So so you have to teach it what it can and can't do. So just hold the thought how profoundly challenging that that is and Ford's got a really great leadership position in it and the commitment we're making is we want people to go in it because they trust us. So I'm fond of saying that a lot of people still won't fly even that's safer than than being in a car today because they feel at that height and the altitude or the you know feeling closed spaces they don't trust it. So we have to we have to get people to believe in these kinds of capabilities in a way that they'll trust for it. So I'm really committed to that. But the deeper thing is when I said a moment ago what I have stood where President Ford or my father did I believe I would have but but you see that chance that challenge at that time was just a concept called access. They just wanted to be able to go in the same restroom or the same hotel room. It seems to our kids you know I can't imagine a world like that. Now they have a new challenge and the new challenge is that the supply chain for software is not diverse. So the tech companies who I hold highest regard you know in the way they form their businesses they don't have nearly the kind of diversity. So we've sent a message to them that says if you want to supply us we need we need you to understand these jobs because in the day when Jesse Jackson who I know quite well had to lay on the freeway in Chicago when it was being constructed so that he could get the contractors to to be diverse. He had to stop traffic. We've got labor in our workforce now that's diverse but there's no one laying in front of the software code. You follow. Yeah. And so I'm trying to think of ways with the university myself. How can we start to do something like that. And so technology ward is is now the next domain where we have to open the doors because that's where all the jobs are going to be. And this product that I just told you about is going to create some estimates eleven trillion dollar new part of the economy because the vehicles in the environment are both going to be smart and that all has to be invented and created. Yeah. And Paul I'm a you know you you spent for almost four decades associated with the NFL probably still connected. Technology has changed quite a bit in that time frame in technology around sports. Can you talk a little bit about where we are now compared to where it was towards the end of when you were commissioner and where you see it going and how you see it influencing not only professional sports but college sports in general. Yeah. I think the biggest change in the last 12 15 years since I left is in medical science and in scanning technologies. And of course all of this relates to the concussion issue which is not just a football issue it's an issue for most sports it's an issue for the military. And I think it's clear that you know starting in 1989 1990 when I became commissioner I would talk to team physicians and they couldn't they were concerned about concussions but they couldn't tell you what was going on. They couldn't tell you how to diagnose them. They couldn't tell you how to set ground rules for return to play and things like that. And now we've made a tremendous amount of progress in those 25 years since 1990 but we're still adolescents we're still in the early stages of really understanding what to do. But to me that that's a huge positive in terms of what's happening with medical science. In terms of the game itself the technological innovations that I think are important have to do with the playing of surface and with the equipment. So you know the technology that produced artificial turf or synthetic turf so what we want to call them I think is really important in terms of knees and ankles and the body. There are other things that Jim would know because he probably looked at film from Kodak and it didn't look at an iPhone for his playbook. But those things I think are at the margin. So but the the biggest technological impact on sport is how it's delivered to the fan. Yeah. And I think that's been positive beginning again around 1985 1990 we went from broadcast television to subscriber supported television cable satellite internet streaming. But my concern now is that things are being called sports that have nothing to do with sports or with the values of sport. You know I read about E sports and it's it's not sports. The only physical activity is pushing keys. It's not getting out there and being challenged physically emotionally psychologically. I used to say football was the ultimate form of contrived adversity. And it is. And the other sports hockey and basketball they all have their elements. So I'm concerned that more and more of our young people are are being taken by technology away from the values of sport and some of the benefits of sport in terms of sport is a microcosm of life. You prepare. You compete. You win or lose. You evaluate. You reevaluate. You re prepare. You recompete. That's what life's about. Getting yourself better and better and doing it against competition that's demanding. I'm not. I think that's a real value which student athletes in the traditional sports are getting. I'm not sure that when we go to E sports it's going to be the same benefit. And then of course we have the bigger issues of combining sport with education which are a challenge for our society. But the delivery of the product is both a benefit and I'm not so sure it's an undiluted benefit. Yeah you and I would would would be able to share instantly what we learned about the range of how we could push ourselves when we played for that coach we played for. And I feel that when I'm jet lagged in China and I'm tired of my job. You hear the old man. I hear him saying in fact I had him very close to Bo of course and I had him the steel case to go through some factories and of course it's he stopped work you know there's millions square foot factories and everybody wanted to shake his hand and it was a really hot day and we had a we had a golf cart for him and we're taking him around and a couple of the guys said hey coach you know we want to take a break he goes hack it'll go down before I do. And you probably would. I remember that when I'm tired yeah but but the message in that fun is what Paul just trumpeted which I thought was wonderful is the nature of competition the nature of competing as a country as a company as a football team really matters. Yeah you know if you want any kind of life I think. Right you know Paul you wouldn't you probably not find it's hard to believe we we have a very competitive and championship level he sports team here and our engineering students are in the school the information make up that team so we're very proud of that. Well even though I agree that I saw a blurb for a conference being held by some sports marketing group recently saying what every university needs to know about e-sports and given my own lack of technological sophistication I I forwarded it to the president of Georgetown and with the note saying what in the hell can e-sports have to do with the mission of universities and he sent back an email right away saying you and I are having lunch on Friday the 17th and I'll tell you it's a lot. Yeah so I'm ready to be educated. Yes well I'll leave that him to educate you on that. So you you lead you both have led and you you still lead major corporation in addition Paul you were chair of the board of Georgetown so I like and I'll start with you Paul how how has participation in sports impacted the way you view your leadership efforts with your company and around social powers? Well take the last piece first I think that as a student athlete at Georgetown I I I heard the word leadership hundreds of times every every week and accountability hundreds of times every week you got to be accountable to yourself to your family to your teammates to the university to the community and it's still the case I know it's true at Georgetown it's true at Michigan it's true at the great universities where student athletes are competing today and I think that gives you a sense of how much you have to learn and how much you have to experience in order to be a leader in society because accountability and leadership are not things you can go into a five and dime store and buy there are things that you develop over the years so but that but that set a set of goals for me for my life which I think were really important you know when I was at Georgetown started as a math major I can assure you if I had not been a good basketball player I never would have been admitted to Georgetown as a math major and after one semester it was confirmed that I was not going to be a math major and I the dean called me into his office and I thought he was going to tell me I better start looking for another school because I'm flunking out it's not what he said he said to me you're having trouble in the first semester because you're in an area where you don't have the right background you know calculus and physics but he said he said you are capable of being a Rhodes scholar I know that and at that time Georgetown had not had a lot of Rhodes scholars this is 1958 59 and he said here's what I want you to do in order to be a serious Rhodes scholarship candidate he gave me about six things that I was to do in my academic side and he also said you're going to be a hell of a stronger student than you'll ever be a basketball player so so he made it clear I was not going to the NBA let's put that way but but just to listen to that dean who was a Jesuit and have him say you have the potential to dream a wild dream and to achieve it and I couldn't believe it and but in my senior year there was a big game Georgetown played in master square garden which the Hoyas won and the next day in the Washington Star the headline was tagly blue absent Hoyas win as if there was a cause and effect relationship but I was at an interview that weekend for a Rhodes scholarship I came within that much of being a Rhodes scholar so so that teaches that one experience teaches you don't sell yourself short but more importantly it tells you what you have to do to prepare to be a leader in society and to care about the community and the communities in which you live which is your local community and and also your nation so I think sports are indispensable in the proper context right in in how did that when you when you talk about that experience how does how did that affect you when you became the leader the head of the NFL of well for one thing I think leadership is at all levels of the organization it's not just at the top everyone in the organization has got to see himself or herself as a leader and if you can get that into your culture you know that that's phenomenal the other the other thing that I believe in I mentioned this to the students at lunch today I have a I have two expressions expressions that I attribute in part to sports one is if it ain't broke fix it anyway because you can always be better no matter how good you are and you learn that in sports the two forwards may be great the two point the point guard in the senate may not be so great well don't patch yourself on the back make everyone better if it ain't broke fix it anyway and do it together and the other thing is have a high tolerance for conflict because it can be a positive attribute of any organization and you learn that from sports that's what Jim alluded to competing makes you better and being required to compete at a very high level is a blessing so I think those things that you learn in sports and you can learn them in other arenas you can learn that in music you can learn that in other parts but sports have a unique combination of physical mental emotional and then you take that and try to apply that to your organization that's how you're a leader that's good point I'm gonna use that first quote I love that Jim how about you how do you see sports defining helping to prepare you to be a leader well you heard some of the spiritual things I gained I would say what I'd love to share is growing up in a family of four boys and my dad you know athletic it was two on two everything so and the humility that I actually learned in sports and in that family that you you know if your head got too big it was your brother was gonna knock it off and then when you played in the kind of program we did where everyone was so good and so talented that you learn the humility of why you need other people to be successful I think that's probably something I carried forward because I one of my big challenges as a brand new CEO and this is a friend that I know Paul had is Bill Marriott is that I got there's three jobs I've had where I wasn't the destined CEO you know I wasn't destined to be the AD at Michigan I wasn't destined to be the CEO of Ford or steel case something happened and they asked me to step in so when I stepped in a steel case because I was running a startup for them I had this caricature in my mind what a CEO had to be and think of it as you know they got a cigar they're chomping on it they're barking orders everybody wants to do what they that wasn't me but I felt like I was as competitive as that person right so I go to see Bill Marriott C.K. Prohollitt who was a professor here at Michigan connected the two of us and both were family companies Marriott and Steelcase and both were finding themselves at a stage where the evolution of the business was challenging the history so I said Mr. Marriott I said I went to DC to see him I said you're like I want to talk about Steelcase but it seems like your challenge in the hoteling business is simple and this is back in 94 I would just build hotels all over Vegas you know gambling and all the money I mean I had forgotten that his faith he's Mormon and he looked at me and he says we don't believe in that and if I could picture for the young people the peace he had in his eyes when he said that I thought I want that I want to be a CEO and say I can't do that and you see the peace in my eyes and so my life has been about trying to find that I think I have I mean it's the caricature of design and network based teams versus hierarchical so I kind of blew up kind of the older ways that companies were running to try now it isn't as advanced because if you were in a startup or you worked in Silicon Valley this is the norm well think of what sports taught me if I was going to end up running a company with lots of teams and a competitive spirit and the way that want no one individual is more important than the team and things that you and I heard it served me supremely well as I look at it today so now I know I'm getting old right and I see the evolution of sports and I think so they're celebrating the individual more you know and I like the entertainment part of that but I think about and I tell myself have room for that in your head because maybe that's just the fun and really behind the scenes there's this this tightness so I think that matters in companies as much as it does on the field is what you think about with that four pointing at your teammate do you really need them and as a CEO it doesn't change at all you need your team as much as they need you or you won't be successful right it's a you know sports if I can interject I think really to your last point really teaches you about the importance of others which impacts the importance within not only the organization but outside the organization those community that community is around you the importance of being a teammate in the larger sense to the community to the country to the world kind of thing so which is interesting in the current context of our the discourse the three of us sitting judgment of the conflict and go gosh why can't we act like a team I mean that's kind of the thing I feel right boy that would be great let's don't split up let's come together right yeah we're going to have time for some questions from the audience in a few minutes just prepare you guys to to think about questions I want to get to a couple other questions and then we'll open it up to you all journalism outlets and television networks are increasingly challenged by how to separate particularly in my world sports journalism in political editorializing where is the line between sports and politics if there is such such a thing what should be the role of sports media and covering some of the civil rights issues that we see in our country today well and this is this would be my muse on that so when I was athletic director I would think the way he the way Paul Taglibu read ran the NFL was my target integrity the clarity of purpose the advocacy for for others so I'm going to let him answer that question because he's the guy I would follow in the way he thinks about the way the press and sport come together well I'm going to answer you but before that because you said we're going to go to questions from students and I want to say point of personal privilege that for me to be here in an event in honor of Ira Harris is really special and I'm going to tell you a journalism story about Ira Harris in 1989 some of you old folks will remember the NFL owners had a recommendation that another individual should be the commissioner and they reached an impasse and that person essentially withdrew and then then commissioner Pete Roselle was called upon to manage the process to start all over again and come up with some new candidates and as I recall the situation Roselle told his head media guy make sure there are no leaks as to who's going to be in the next group that we're going to consider so immediately there was speculation that Paul Tagaboo then an unknown attorney in Washington was one of the leading candidates and the NFL's media guy was told by Roselle put an end to that rumor so Joe Brown is the person I'm talking about and he told the media that there was it wasn't Tagaboo there was a dark horse candidate from Chicago and off the record I can tell you his name but don't say you got it from me because Pete's really serious about keeping this quiet his name is Ira Harris so I'm told that Ira got a flood of phone calls for media and he said me he must have the wrong phone number but he was my cover for about two or three weeks and I think when I went to the interview with the search committee the search committee thought it was going to see Ira Harris in his hands true story but anyway I think part of the answer to your question is what are the fans interested in and part of it is what are the media companies trying to do for audience and I think the fans like the story that makes the king a little more human and sometimes that gets off into politics so Michael Jordan does he view himself as a role model well he viewed himself as the greatest basketball player ever but is he a role model and role model for what so sometimes the subject of sports naturally leads you into politics Jack Kemp's running as a vice presidential candidate with Bob Dole in 1996 so now all of a sudden we have a nexus between sports and politics in the current environment it's all that much more complicated we own the NFL network as owners of the NFL network do we want to report as another news organization might on some sexual assault charge our people are taught to be marketing football how do you create a second organization which is about news news with integrity I could see similar issues at the conference level where the conferences have networks so you have to Jim use the word you have to really pay attention to integrity and understand what the public expects and what you expect of yourself in terms of candor and what you're delivering and then when you get into social media as we're learning it seems like it's all about celebrity a lot of it's about celebrity and politics but it's also about hearing from the public instantly so it's a completely different process it's like the old what we used to learn in political science was plebiscitary democracy used to have a hypothesis what if everyone in the public could be polled on every issue well that's where we are so the nature of the technology is I think is really making this into a complicated question and then put on top of that what are actual sources and what are counterfeit sources there's some information coming out now suggesting that some of the dissension that was fomented around NFL players kneeling is coming from websites that were connected with Russia so it's for fake news infecting sports now I don't know if that's been documented yet or not but those are the kinds of questions people are beginning to ask it wasn't just about elections it's about the fans don't like this player because they think he's you know too arrogant or pushing too hard on a certain social issue so where you draw the line is almost impossible and then I think news organizations are putting more sports on the front page than ever before it used to be you know Pete Rosell my predecessor used to say we have the greatest business in the world for one simple reason newspapers all over America in four parts national and general news part one national and international news part two is metro part three is business it covers hundreds if not thousands of businesses every day part four is sports it covers the four of us football basketball baseball and hockey that's a good business to be in when you've got one fourth of every newspaper covering your business well that's no longer the way it is that's a huge change in journalism and a huge change in society you know Ward as you go to the questions I draw this in the air there's a chart I use that I borrowed from a guy named Bob Galvin who was a Motorola I rule would know Bob and he was working on pagers in China and he had really high market share so they lost half the share in a very short time they came up with this chart which is the curve goes up on the top which is the ability to make something better so think of newspapers became better with computing you know in terms of the way and speed of data but the curve that's difficult is the understanding of what humans need or what their use is it's called a design gap so what I've been thinking about in your role is the speed of information that when Paul was a kid and I was a kid we would open a newspaper because we couldn't go see all the baseball games you could listen to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio but you read the box score and you actually kind of played the game in your head reading that right now it's stream and so this is an example where it's the speed and access to data is like this but now what's happened to the fan in terms of what information do we need to give them so a dream I had is that what can we put in their hands inside the stadium or on their phone that's only resident there so that part of your ticket is some sort of intimate thing and we did some work together you remember our trip to Northern California we were playing with since we had the helmets already connected could we have the fans actually hear the play called before it was run and we have a time delay or something so they can you know alter the outcome of the game but that's the design opportunity in the future is there's new ways to make the games with technology have speed of information that doesn't change the sport but changes the fan participation yeah you know NASCAR is similar to what NASCAR is doing now selling being inside the vehicle inside the pit pit row with the drivers and those kind of things last question before we go to the audience participation we Michael touched on a little bit in his introduction obviously it's out there in terms of Colin Kaepernick and Nealine and what's going on and the NFL what has happened in college campuses high schools even you know how you guys have any thoughts on how schools leagues should respond when people choose to I may add my opinion rightly so take their first amendment right to protest what is the appropriate response from leagues from colleges from high schools those kind of things any thoughts about I'm in a different role but I would tell you I watched Jim Harbaugh deal with Colin's situation because he was Jim knows the quality of person that he is and at first and I know what kind of patriot Jim is at first he didn't like this and then he came back and said I think Colin deserves the right to express himself and then more recently asked about some of the conflicts said if you look at the constitution this is a basic right you know and so I was really proud of my coach here at Michigan but when you all hear that what I want you to think about is here's a man who's intimacy in managing a player knowing what that player's life has been like what he's dealt with has a good sense of the pulse of what what the team members are going through and they're my compass here to understand how they're feeling and how they're motivated and how they're guided by their sense of what's right and wrong and I find this thing about football coaches they're not perfect but if they're really committed to their team they get to the right spot there you know it's like it gets them to the right spot so I listened to my football coach and he says this is an important thing for our players right now I also as the CEO of Ford Motor Company know constituents who worry you know that patriotism is being shifted and that's why I said a minute ago there's no light between those two subjects because I don't want to pick one over the other I believe in both of them and so I'm very fond of what I've learned watching and this was the point of the way those players were feeling it made me I think I'm really with it and understand it my sensitivities went up about what I didn't really understand and then I'm glad the way the country is starting to resolve it and their arm in arm like we have at Michigan and they're honoring the flag and that would be my message to the high school kids is find a way for people to understand how you're feeling and respect for your country and I think there's a design that works like that you know I used to I still feel this way I tell young people very often they ask me what's the most important quality that I can have if I want to be successful and normally I say listening listen and in all contexts and stop talking and I used to be in meetings at the NFL this was the early days of Blackberry and I'd been meetings and the young people on the other side of the table all they did was talk my own employees and I'd start sending messages and say shut up and listen and then come out of the meeting and say why were you so rude I said because when you're talking you're only repeating what you're ready to know when you're listening you might learn something new right that's a good point so listen and I learned over many years in the NFL listening to the players is a really important thing that's how we got collective bargaining agreements done that produced labor peace for over two decades when there had been labor strife for almost two decades we listened and took seriously what the players had to say about what kinds of systems would be mutually advantageous for the owners and for the players so I've learned that these young men need to be listened to I've also learned that they know what's going on in their communities and with their families I used to travel around the world to the military bases with NFL players Jerome Bettis Michael Strayhan players like that they are the ultimate patriots they grew up in military families it's true of most NFL players you probably never heard of Warwick Dunn maybe you did I know he's not as well known as Jerome Bettis because Jerome's in the Hall of Fame and he's a Chicago guy Warwick Dunn his mother was a police officer she was killed in the line of duty he has financed over 150 homes for families who has had a mother or a father killed in the line of duty that's the kind of people we're dealing with they know what's going on in their community so listen to them that's a starting point and understand that they are patriotic which they are don't start the conversation with them by calling them son of a bitch that's not going to be constructive with football players it's not constructive with most people it's not constructive with me you know and I never played football but if you start a conversation with a football player and say look we got a problem here I want to solve it with you and there are two things I got to say to you first of all you're a son of a bitch and second of all the only solution is mine that's not going to produce a long conversation with a football player it's not going to gain a lot of respect either so understand who these people are and why they're doing what they're doing is the first thing second thing is to understand that we do have a first amendment in America and what it requires is the government to stay the hell out of regulating speech that's important and so what does it mean it means that you can say what you think I can disagree with you we can argue he can't shut us down well that's that's not America so that's the second thing so that what does that leave you it leads to the school systems have to deal with it at the high school and junior high school level universities have to deal with these issues at the university level and the sports leagues have to deal with it at the professional level and there's room for different difference of agreement there's no single answer so Adam Silver's been dealing with it in one way in the NBA he he had programs with his players going back to last season and he's continuing them and he's told them to have to stand during the anthem Commissioner Goodell has been trying to walk a tougher line and and and he's set a tough challenge for himself and for the players in the NFL how can we make it clear to all of the public not just some of the public that we are respectful and patriotic while at the same time focusing on these underlying issues of justice and and criminal criminal law system and in other parts of society sports leagues and teams are not designed to be advocacy organizations you know it's hard enough for the NFL to produce some spots for the united way on non-controversial things so so I give Commissioner Goodell a lot of credit for taking on the hard challenge which is to to to be respectful of the public and families with men and women in the military lost family members respectful of the diverse divergence of the views we have in America on these issues but to deal with the underlying substance of of what these players are trying to accomplish and I would say to the players you have a unique opportunity right now your protests have been heard that's shown in the polls 50 more than 50 percent of the public is saying we support the players that was not true a year ago same polls a year ago less than 50 percent are supporting the players but you've made your point now move on with actions actions will speak louder than words and I think I think as I as I'm reading the newspapers and that's all I do I don't I don't have access to the players directly but Michael Bennett and others last Thursday night they said this is Veterans Day weekend my dad was in the military we're going to stand we've been kneeling up until now but so I think they understand that they've protested that the public has heard them the owners have heard them the commission has heard them and now we've got to have actions that will be louder than words going forward including bombastic and divisive words the actions will be louder correct that's a good point yeah please and I'll give recognition to Mrs. Ford I mean she is one of the owners stood up with her players in supporting some initiatives to really make a difference in our community in Detroit in the surrounding areas and in their home communities and so with great leadership like that by her I just want to recognize that as one of the solutions yeah I read about that and it was terrific what she did and what she said and what she's doing to support the players yeah as it is now I'm going to turn it to questions but I must say I'm on the I sit on the foundation the the board of the Women's Sports Foundation I did I did have a question about the 45th anniversary of the Women's Sports Foundation and I don't want to get killed by Billie Jean King when I go to the next meeting so if there's not going to be a question from the audience I will end with with that one but I do want to turn to the audience and I see we have someone some people up here so please go ahead introduce yourself and answer your question thank you my name is Anna Zinkel I'm a current master student here at the Ford School of Public Policy and it's such a privilege to hear from three leaders who have so profoundly impacted the athletic industry and far beyond so we are going to switch to reading some questions that have come in from members of the audience and online through Twitter and my classmate Jai who will introduce himself in a second and I will go ahead and read through some of these questions anyone who would like to answer is welcome to do so so our first question comes from someone in the audience who says as a current student athlete and the Ford School this topic is near and dear to my heart as former athletes yourselves and men of power within the athletic industry what advice would you give to athletes today given political strife that we are facing do we remain silent or fight and risk giving up the sports that we love like Colin Kaepernick well I think you've got to fight but you have to do it in the right way you know if your goal is to galvanize the public in support of a point of view that you're advocating you need to pay attention not only to those who are already with you but to those who are not yet convinced and so that means you have to strike a balance you have to you have to understand what it takes to grow your constituency and in the way this present issue that I just alluded to has been presented unfairly I think it's been presented as an issue between patriots and not unpatriotic people which as I said is erroneous it's a fiction it's worse than a fiction but so I think you need to be strategic and you need to recognize the limitations of a sports organization and I'll say just in two respects what would the NFL do at any time during a telecast forget about the anthem for a moment suppose it was during a time out and two players stood up on the sideline while the coach is talking to the quarterback and two players stood up on the sideline and one had a sign said reverse Roe v. Wade and the other said fun planned parenthood would you allow them and all of a sudden the network's showing that to the nation would you say that's okay of course not that's their job if it was Monday morning the next day or Tuesday which is their day off and one guy wants to go out with his wife and support one side of the issue and another guy wants to go out and support the other side of the issue fine encourage them to do it part of my problem with the criticism that's been leveled that the players this for so many years when I was commissioner and since I've been commissioned I used to hear these guys are just dumb jocks all they do is play football and make a lot of money and they get criticized for not being engaged on societal issues now they're engaged on societal issues and all of a sudden people say shut up and it's on societal issues that they know a lot about because they've been there in those communities so I think that they need to be engaged but you can't do it in all circumstances it's true of employees of a university a professor can't go into a classroom and start off say I got five minutes so I want to tell you about Black Lives Matter and then I'm going to get to my lecture on Aristotle and Plato you know the Dean would hear that and say well wait a minute you know I'm all for free speech but not while you're teaching that class so I think it takes a little bit of nuance and it takes a lot of thought as to what is appropriate and what is inappropriate even even the tempting thing is to take the biggest and widest platform that you have and use it it's not always the right answer I mean let me just real quick answer to the question I've told our student athletes here and everywhere I've been you you have a right to your first amendment to speak or protest for about what you you have to do but I don't have a right to I have a right to defend your first amendment but you have to defend and figure out what you want to make a difference in and be able to talk about that more than just the symbolism of taking a knee that we have to educate people we have to have ideas we have to have thoughts about how to solve it and resolve the issue and part of that is the educational piece that if you're going to do that if you're going to stand up or protest in some way you have a responsibility to teach others and to tell others how they can help society be better around that particular issue not just by the symbolism of taking a knee that's the easy thing to do to protest to silently protest doing the flag my father was a sergeant in the army I don't care how mad I get about something in this country I'm not going to take a knee I tell them that but I will find a way to make sure that we're trying to resolve and solve problems that I believe need to be resolved and will help them as student athletes and so I want them to fight but taking a knee is not necessarily the fight it's a symbol of your frustration or anger or what's challenging this country but that's not the fight thank you for the answer the first question and good evening my name is Jai Singletary and I'm also a first year master's of public policy student at the Gerald Alford School of Public Policy and the second question reads and it's from an audience member what are your thoughts about the lack of black leadership roles within the NFL and what steps can we take as a nation to create a more diverse and inclusive environment within head coaching jobs in the NFL well first of all my own personal view is that we've had in the NFL in Gene Upshaw who was the head of the Players Association one of the most important black leaders in the history of sports and for that matter in our society which comes back to the first question we were talking about he not only was a very tough and successful head of the NFL Players Association he was a member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO for over two decades heavily involved in the labor movement and fighting for coal miners and others who were part of the AFL-CIO federation and I think he's one of the most has been until recently one of the most underrated African American leaders in our society I say until recently because I understand there's a major piece of an exhibit at the new AFL-CIO in Washington on the Mall honoring Gene Upshaw I'm sure that Jim and Ward can talk about African American leaders in business and higher education so I think we're making progress in the NFL just like most of society it's not fast enough with respect to the coaching issue what I hear as I go around the country is the requirement that we had in the NFL which is called the Rooney Rule whereby when you're hiring a head coach evaluating head coaches for a hire you have to interview at least one minority candidate it's mandatory more and more businesses are doing that it gets to be complicated legally because some legal critics say it's a preference that's affirmative action that's impermissible and I know at the university level there's been a lot of discussion through the NCAA and with athletic directors and Ray Anderson at Arizona State and others could it not be adopted as a mandatory NCAA rule for all the universities that are in the NCAA like the NFL did I think the NCAA that's an oversimplification of a more complicated problem so I think the NFL has I participated in a conference about a month ago where the Rooney Rule was being discussed as a requirement that boards of directors should have when they're selecting new board members so it's having an impact way beyond the NFL is it perfect? No is it a very positive stuff? I think yes and I think it's a credit not just to Dan Rooney but to the other owners and the commissioner who are making it work because it works only if you spend a lot of time preparing people for interviews and developing the talent pool if you don't do a lot of support work the mandatory interview is a sham if you do the support work it's not a sham it's a real positive in terms of employment and a lot of what we learned as we led up to adopting the Rooney Rule we got from Colin Powell who was an innovator in terms of how general offices were evaluated candidates to be general offices in the U.S. Army were evaluated and chosen we modeled a lot of what we did with the Rooney Rule on Colin Powell and what he did in the military and I'm happy to say others are now emulating the NFL I would just in a parallel way talk about business and say in my lifetime you know I'm in my 60s what you would witness in business is there was a serial movement to train all the people that had power about diversity so you heard me talk about the U of M was a leader in terms of the case here around the law school and diversity and I got to witness you know I remember being young and going with all majority people to learn about diversity you know to learn in fact they need to dust off the sexual harassment teaching you know and make sure people that have been trained on that what's come at the other end of that is it's a better world so I work in a company now where social justice is held in high regard you heard about Mrs. Ford Bill Ford who's our chairman is kind of legendary in the force of social justice in areas for example he was way ahead of others on the environment you know when industrialists didn't want to didn't want the echo of pollution to be talked about in their company and he actually led in a way that was just unbelievable a reform because I was in West Michigan and he was kind of my hero that he was able to do it and I was trying to do the same thing more recently he spoke at TED in 2011 about if we cut and paste the transportation system and put it in China killed the world because of the nature of vehicle population can't get that big I'm just telling you the anecdotes because I want you to think about social justice in a broad way and so people of color definitely an important aspect of that and my head I you know heard me earlier saying women of color really deserve an enhancement of of consideration to get get the flows better in so many parts of of our world and our life and I'm taking on the business question so I would say you'd feel really good about it but I sit back in days and say you know what is the barrier now if I didn't think it was racist you know because and I did a lot of work studying the difference between values so values are the things when you go into a company they say this is the things that we hold dear and one test for values being robust is if they leave any group out then they can't be a value so color was added but there were homophobic people in companies you know or the transgender against that so companies had to update their value system to not not eliminate anybody because it's is a box it's supposed to have all people have equity okay for a moment let that stand that it's better as you're coming out and and of college and you're wondering did the business world get better what I'm beginning to think about is a concept called ethos and if you look if you look it up in Wikipedia it's the character which actually changes over time so imagine we're back in the you know 200 years ago all the business people were sitting in a room and they had slaves and they they weren't having any conflict of conscience you know I don't want to indict everybody but you know what I mean it was the character of a business was you had that low cost labor virtually it wasn't no cost right they had to support them but it was an awful notion in the way that a business was run what I've been saying to myself is of course we might you know we're way ahead of that today but what is the thing 100 years from now they'd look at me and say you were silly that you held and and I think the issue here is the businesses they transcend country boundaries you know there's there's more vehicles sold in China by a factor of two almost that are sold in America today so some our business isn't bigger in China but some of our competitors have bigger businesses in China than they any Western market so imagine that their headquarters are in Western cultures and all your customers are in Asia I think we'll look back one day and say geez we didn't get that part totally right because we had to think about our stories and our narratives in a way that our Asian Asian customers felt a sense of equity and the character of who they were was coming through our business so Ford's really diverse it's all over the world it's like you just wouldn't believe it I mean when you come to our meetings it's like you're at the United Nations I'm so proud of that and the reason I'm working on the ethos part is now do we understand that our markets are going to make up a bigger portion of consideration than we ever imagined and I'll you know come back someday and talk to you about that and and I'm looking at the time and we have to wrap up but I do want to go back to Paul's response and give him and Jean and the work that he started the NFL actually is a leader in preparing having particularly head coaches general managers comparatively at a higher percentage than we do excuse me in division one intercollegiate athletics and we're better than division two and division three and so there's a lot of credit that is given to Paul and his efforts to really not only prepare but to actually hire input head coaches and general managers minorities and black and we're getting to the point hopefully one day I know there's some women particularly in the GM role assistant GM role that are being cultivated in that sense I see someone in the audience and I had a professor and Dr. Charles Moody who told me something years ago and I think to try to sum up some of the last few comments he said it's not just about mentorship it's about preparing people and sponsoring them for leadership roles to prepare them to take on the next level to be hard to make sure that we develop and build a pipeline and ladies and gentlemen I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that with Bill Martin sitting in the audience today he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself at a time when I didn't think I was not thinking about becoming an athletic director I was still thinking of maybe one day teaching and research and those kind of things and sort of up in the air and he gave me a shot and challenges and pushed me in ways that I didn't think I needed or wanted to be pushed and so I see him in the audience I just want to thank him personally because because of him back in 1999 and I sit in this chair today and I think we need to recognize that there are many that that these two gentlemen have touched in their role prepared to go on to leadership in in responsibility many lessons that they talked about and so I'll close by thanking Michael in the Ford School but please join me in giving Paul in Jim a round of applause and thanks thanks Bill thank you all for coming thank you