[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 18 (Monday, January 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1727-S1728]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CONGRESSMAN STEVE LARGENT

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, late last week, the Member of Congress 
from the First District in the State of Oklahoma [Steve Largent] was 
voted into the National Football League's Hall of Fame in the first 
year during which he was eligible for that honor.
  While Mr. Largent represents a State a long way from my own State of 
Washington, his entire National Football League career was, of course, 
as a member of the Seattle Seahawks. And so for many years, for more 
than half of the year he was a resident of the Puget Sound region.
  Very rarely have so many distinctions come to a person of the age of 
Steve Largent, as an outstanding football player, both in college and 
in the National Football League, as an elected Member of the Congress 
of the United States, and as a person with a great deal of fame. 
Rarely, I may say, has anyone so deserved those honors.
  I think Steve Largent would be the first to say that he was far from 
the fastest or the most gifted person playing in the National Football 
League, but due to a tremendous amount of self-discipline and 
dedication, he became one of the most outstanding persons in our 
generation to play that fascinating game.
  But I believe that Mr. Largent and all of us would say that more 
important than his fame as a football player, more important than his 
membership in the Congress of the United States, has been the example 
he has presented to those who have come to know him through those 
activities as a human being: As a husband, as a father, as an activist 
Christian. With those as his No. 1 goals, he has nonetheless been 
[[Page S1728]] professionally successful, now, in two dramatically 
different professions.
  We speak often of the role model nature of professional athletes. In 
Steve Largent, we have an athlete who is truly a role model for our 
society; an individual who has shown that fame and high income is not 
inconsistent with the finest possible family and citizen leadership 
that it is possible for us to imagine. Last week, Congressman Largent 
was a part of the debate in the House of Representatives over a 
balanced budget amendment on which debate will begin in this body in 
less than an hour. So he is now serving in as distinguished a fashion 
as a Member of this Congress as he did as a member of the Seattle 
Seahawks and the National Football League. But most of all, our friend 
and exemplar, Steve Largent, is a person who shows what citizenship and 
membership in a family ought to be in the United States of America.
  So it is that we, from the State of Washington, are grateful for his 
long association with us. We wish, along with the people of Oklahoma, 
and especially of his First Congressional District, to congratulate him 
on an honor well earned and to wish him long years of success in his 
new career and a lifetime of success as a leader of the people he 
represents.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized. I 
might suggest the Senator from North Dakota is recognized for 15 
minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Conrad pertaining to the introduction of S. 293 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  

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