[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3723-S3724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE PANTHERS' WELL-PRACTICED TRADITION

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today I want to bring to the Senate's 
attention a group of student athletes in Vermont who have an unusual 
and admirable tradition. For the past 42 years, Middlebury College 
freshman have helped a Middlebury man with a disability make it to 
football and basketball games like clockwork. It is another example 
where students' education extends far beyond the walls of a college 
classroom.
  In the March 10, 2003, issue of Sports Illustrated, well-known sports 
columnist Rick Reilly took a moment to explain the tradition to his 
readers. Middlebury College has long been recognized as one of the 
Nation's finest institutions of higher education. The quality of its 
faculty, the rigors of coursework, stunning facilities, and the success 
of its athletic programs are the foundation for Middlebury's storied 
history and academic reputation. Yet it also is what goes unnoticed 
that makes this truly a special place--like a tradition that takes 
place right before the start of every football and basketball game. It 
is a tradition that has come to exemplify what it means to be a 
Middlebury College Panther, a Vermonter, and a person in full.
  For the past 42 years, the freshman members of the Middlebury College 
football and basketball teams have been going to Butch Varno's house 
before the start of the game and literally giving him a lift. Mr. 
Varno, who from infancy has contended with cerebral palsy, is confined 
to a wheelchair and does not drive. On game day, he anticipates the 
arrival of a small band of Panthers for a ride to the game, which 
includes lifting Mr. Varno out of bed and getting him to the bleachers.
  We in Vermont are proud of the student athletes who make this happen 
before each game. Whether they know it or not, they represent the very 
best of our Nation's college students. They are learning, playing hard 
and, most importantly, caring for others in their community.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of Rick Reilly's column be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From Sports Illustrated, Mar. 10, 2003]

                              Extra Credit

                            (By Rick Reilly)

       The best college tradition is not dotting the i at Ohio 
     State. It's not stealing the goat from Navy. Or waving the 
     wheat at Kansas.
       It's Picking Up Butch at Middlebury (Vt.) College.
       For 42 years Middlebury freshman athletes have been Picking 
     Up Butch for football and basketball games. It's a sign-up 
     sheet thing. Carry the ball bags. Gather all the towels. Pick 
     Up Butch.
       Basketball players, men and women, do it during football 
     season. Football players do it during basketball season. Two 
     hours before each home game, two freshmen grab whatever car 
     they can get and drive a mile off campus to the tiny house 
     where 54-year-old Butch Varno lives with his 73-year-old 
     mother, Helen, who never got her driver's license. And they 
     literally Pick Up Butch, 5'3'' and 170 pounds, right off his 
     bed.
       They put him in his wheelchair and push him out of the 
     house, or one guy hauls him in a fireman's carry. They pile 
     him into the car, cram the wheelchair into the trunk, take 
     him to the game and roll him to his spot in the mezzanine for 
     football games or at the end of the bench for basketball.
       Butch always smiles and says the same thing from the bottom 
     of his heart: ``CP just sucks.'' Cerebral palsy. While his 
     fondest dream has always been to play basketball, it'll never 
     happen. There is little that he can physically do for 
     himself.
       ``At first, you're a little nervous; you're like, I don't 
     know,'' says freshman wide receiver Ryan Armstrong. ``But the 
     older guys say, `We did it when we were freshmen. Now you go 
     get him. It's tradition.' So me and my buddy got him the 
     first week. He's pretty heavy. We bumped his head a couple of 
     times getting him into the car. He's like, `Hey! Be careful!' 
     But he loves getting out so much that afterward you feel 
     good. It's fun to put a smile like that on somebody's face.''
       And the kids don't just Pick Up Butch. They also Keep Butch 
     Company. Take Butch to the Bathroom. Feed Butch. ``He always 
     likes a hot dog and a Coke,'' says 6'8'' Clark Read, 19, a 
     power forward. ``It's kind of weird at first, sticking a hot 
     dog in his mouth. The trick is to throw out the last bite so 
     he doesn't get your fingers.''
       Thanks to 42 years of freshmen, Butch hardly ever misses a 
     Middlebury game. Not that he hasn't been late.
       ``One day this year, the two guys were calling me on their 
     cell,'' says Armstrong, ``and

[[Page S3724]]

     they're going, `We can't find Butch!' And I'm like, `You lost 
     Butch? How can you lose Butch?' Turns out they just couldn't 
     find his house.''
       Nobody at Middlebury remembers quite how Picking Up Butch 
     got started, but Butch does. It was 1961. He was 13, and his 
     grandmother, a housekeeper at the dorms, wheeled him to a 
     football game. It started snowing halfway through, and 
     afterward she couldn't push him all the way back home. A 
     student named Roger Ralph asked them if they needed a ride. 
     Ever since then, Butch has been buried in the middle of 
     Middlebury sports.
       Sometimes he gives the basketball team a pregame speech, 
     which is usually, ``I love you guys.'' He holds the game ball 
     during warmups and at halftime until the refs need it. He is 
     held upright for the national anthem. Once in a while, just 
     before tip-off, they put him in the middle of the players' 
     huddle, where they all touch his head and holler, ``One, two, 
     three, together!'' When the action gets tense, the freshmen 
     hold his hands to keep them from flailing. After the games 
     some of the players come back to the court and help him 
     shuffle a few steps for exercise, until he collapses back in 
     his chair, exhausted. Then it's home again, Butch chirping 
     all the way.
       And it's not just the athletes at Middlebury who attend to 
     him. Butch is a campus project. Students come by the house 
     and help him nearly every day. Over the years they taught him 
     to read, and then last year they helped him get his GED. 
     Somebody got him a graduation cap and gown to wear at the 
     party they threw in his honor. During his thank-you speech, 
     Butch wept.
       ``These kids care what happens to me,'' Butch says. ``They 
     don't have to, but they do. I don't know where I'd be without 
     them. Probably in an institution.''
       But that's not the question. The question is, Where would 
     they be without Butch?
       ``It makes you think,'' says Armstrong. ``We're all young 
     athletes. Going to a game or playing in a game, we take it 
     for granted. But then you go Pick Up Butch, and I don't know, 
     it makes you feel blessed.''
       Now comes the worst time of the year--the months between 
     the end of the basketball season, last week, and the start of 
     football in August. ``It stinks,'' Butch says. He sits at 
     home lonely day after day, watching nothing but Boston Red 
     Sox games on TV, waiting for the calendar pages to turn to 
     the days when he can be one, two, three, together again with 
     the students he loves.
       On that day the door will swing open, and standing there, 
     young and strong, will be two freshmen. And, really, just 
     seeing them is what Picking Up Butch is all about.

                          ____________________