 Thank you very much we're thank you this is an exciting time obviously we have had the we've had the privilege of of greeting the group in Peoria and we can assure you that the governor and Mrs. Reagan are here and they're going to be down in just a minute we're waiting just for the the rest of our press to be in place and then we have a very special presentation to make it's my pleasure now to welcome and introduce to you a most distinguished alumnus of Eureka College Governor Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy proceed with this occasion and pep rallies as we know are times of great enjoyment and excitement at the very beginning Governor Reagan your former football coach and continuing coach at Eureka College mr. Ralph McKenzie and our present football coach head football coach mr. Warner McCollum and the three captains of our football team for 1980 have a presentation to make it you at this time would they please come forward I'm sure I don't have to tell I consider the privilege and an honor and they have for the Eureka College to have this privilege of presenting these gifts I suppose some of you know what the gifts are as they hold them here there's two football jerseys or mr. Reagan I'm going to eliminate my mystery misses I'm gonna speak of them I tell you I'm addressing the way that I particularly met Mr. Reagan I remember that I met him and he called him Dutch I've known him through these years as Dutch and for now on I'll refer to him as Dutch and Nancy of course I don't know too well but I'll refer to her as Nancy now you see that is my insignia on here is Eureka and 80 what the 80 I'm not sure what it stands for I can assure you it's not it wasn't his original football jersey number but I interpreted it to be that he's the 80 stands for the president of the United States and I give me it's not a football jersey hers is a sweater you know I told you this has a sentimental reason and I hope that there'll be many happy memories that come about when Anthony wear these sweaters and jerseys Nancy and Dutch I wish you and we all do wish to the best of everything but the time here in your presence will be an inspiration for these football players sitting out here and tomorrow I hope they win one for the Gipper remember we got to get these guys to bed early president Dan Gilbert and Mrs. Gilbert another coach Mac and the first coach Mac and all of you I can't tell you what this means I it's hard for me to shift gears a little bit because for a long time I've been out job hunting and Senator Percy and Bob Michael to be here tonight and to all of you this is really a most thrilling night for me and if I let myself go I will bathe you in warm nostalgia but you know as I saw I don't know how long the traditions go or how well it remembered over the years from back when I was here but the man who stood up here Mac McKenzie as you know played for Eureka in addition to being coach for Eureka when I was here and still here as a party Eureka but when I was in school we used to have a Peoria newspaper front sheet up in the bill a bulletin board and kind of a trophy case over there in the administration building because the headline read MacKenzie beats Bradley 52 to nothing he had made he had made every one of the 52 points field goals touchdowns and points after touchdown all of them but now he was a little impatient sometimes when we were playing and in those days when you played both ways defense and offense I can remember that to make scrimmage a little tougher and more even why they put the first string line and the second string backfield against the first string backfield in the second string line and I remember a night being in the first string line and someone over in the other side in that first string backfield just wasn't getting the play the way Mac thought it should be run and he explained it a couple of times and then he came walking in there and that baseball cap and the baseball pants that he wore out in the field and with all of us knowing what the play was he shoved the back that was supposed to carry the ball aside and says all right now you give it to me I remember touching a couple of other fellas but every place that he touched me hurt and he went through the varsity line and the second string defensive backfield came back without having been downed at all put the ball down and says now do it that away let me just seriously take a few moments because I know the time is fleeting and you've waited a long time and we've been late but let me just say one thing to all of you who are here as students at Eureka the memories do last I remember coming here in the depths of the depression the great depression the endowment that supported the college had dwindled as everything had dwindled in those days professors taught for months and months with no salary merchants in town were willing to carry them knowing that somehow things would turn out all right many of us who couldn't have gone here unless someone did it or helped us do it matter of fact I had one of the best better jobs I've ever had I washed dishes in the girls dormitory but they let us they carried us they let us defer tuition they and believe me it was I can only tell you this I have since had the opportunity by way of the office I held in California to serve on the board of regents of a great university system of nine campuses and the board of trustees of giant state college and universities that 23 campuses and all if I had it all to do over again I'd come right back here and start where I was before please believe me when I tell you that those they may look attractive in the may look glamorous and on a Saturday with the stadium full and everything but those big assembly line diploma mills may teach and with all due respect to them but you will have memories you will have friendships that are impossible on those great campuses and that just are peculiar to this place this is as far as I'm concerned everything good that has happened to me everything started here on this campus in those four years that are still are so much a part of my life now to those fellas on the team I know what it's like most of the time you're kind of playing uphill as a matter of fact though you might be interested to know another part of the tradition here of that field across the street where you play football that was uphill that that that field was such a way that a safety man used to have to wait for a punt to come over the hill so he could locate it and always waited for the half so you could turn around and start going the other way but anyway one day bunch of us on the campus just decided that we ought to have a better one when the townspeople joined in and they provided the equipment and the field was graded and the field was planted planted and that is Mackenzie Field and as I say the uphill part was that in those days only about 250 of us here but so most sometimes we're playing against schools 10 times your size or more but it was all worthwhile and one day and remember this we asked me one day a little tired sometimes of 50% seasons we said you know why don't we have a schedule where maybe we could look forward to going all the way and he said sure I can give you a schedule like that and he named a few of the schools that we could play but he said what would you rather remember that you played in the same field with a team that had played Iowa the week before in the big 10 and maybe you lost by a touchdown as we did he says would you rather do that or would you rather play a bunch of setups just so you could have a score at the end of the game that puts you out in front and we got the idea some of the moments I'm proudest of I may sometimes say to someone about playing football for Eureka and they say where was that and I can always say well I played against George Musso at Millican who was eight years all pro tackle with the Chicago beer then they remember where it was but fellas I know and you you don't have to be told go on out there tomorrow and just remember one thing it a team that won't be beaten can't be beaten I'll just close with this because all the rest of you have proven that something remains exactly the same as it was all those years ago and that is this little old school beneath the alms upon the campus used to be used to be known and admired by everyone we met as having the greatest spirit of anyone that they next moment or so will be dismissing to go out to the east of the gymnasium for a bonfire governor Mrs. Reagan will join us there to conclude the pep rally and you're all invited to join us outside as soon as we move down here for the governor and Mrs. Reagan again we're glad you came and we'll look forward to seeing you outside