[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[May 20, 1996]
[Pages 783-784]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Honoring the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Champions
May 20, 1996

    The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. You can sort of see 
that as far as this announcement today, I'm the Vice President. 
[Laughter] And Mr. Gore is taking the lead, with his justifiable pride.
    I want to welcome the Members of Congress who are here, the 
presidents of these two great universities, all the coaching staff, and 
their supporters. I see the Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky over here 
and many other people who are supporting these two teams.
    It is true that I am a--I suppose ``a fanatic'' would be too mild a 
word for it--basketball fan. And I tried to watch every game that was on 
television, at least part of it, during this tournament. It was a 
fabulous tournament, in both the women's and the men's divisions. The 
people who won should have won. But as the Vice President said, just 
because you're ahead and you're the favorite doesn't mean you always 
win. I hope everybody around here remembers that. [Laughter]
    I want to congratulate the Lady Vols. They were terrific, especially 
down the stretch. Michelle Marciniak, their most valuable player, and 
all the team--they really--to win in the finals you have to play as a 
team. And I saw--I got a note from my staff before I came out here that 
says that there is a sign outside their locker room back in Knoxville 
that says, ``Offense fills seats. Defense wins games. And rebounding 
wins championships.'' That's kind of the way it works around here. 
[Laughter] And I like that.
    And I want to say again, as I did to you on the phone, Pat Summitt, 
we thank you for your winning ways, and we thank you for the values, the 
spirit, and the rules that you have followed all these years. You have 
got a formula for success as well as some exceedingly gifted young 
women. And we congratulate all of you. You've got a lot to be proud of.
    Now, as you might imagine just from Washington, DC's, location and 
the number of people that work from the Federal Government, we've got a 
lot of people around here that went to the University of Massachusetts 
and Syracuse and all those places, you know. And I told everybody that 
the best basketball in America this year was in the SEC. We nearly had 
an all-

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SEC women's Final Four. SEC did reasonably well in the men's division. 
And if we hadn't had to start all over again two or three times, we 
might have had even more in the Final Eight there.
    And at the end, I remember--we have one of my staff members who 
thinks that there's a basketball waiting for him in heaven who lives in 
Massachusetts. And I said, they really are a team with two great guards 
on offense and defense, but unless Kentucky has a bad day, no one will 
get close in this final tournament. And we all know that Kentucky never 
had a bad day.
    And I think one reason is--maybe the overwhelming reason is that 
even though they had fabulous players, many of which never got the 
individual recognition they deserve, they had a great team. And when you 
can consistently put 10 people out there that can shoot from anywhere 
and that can play defense as well as offense--I read, coach, I don't 
know if this is true, that no one averaged more than 27 minutes a game 
for the University of Kentucky. If that's true, that's a stunning 
statement about the fact that basketball is still a team sport.
    Interestingly enough, I thought about you after I saw the clips from 
the last Chicago Bulls-Magic game because the Chicago Bulls stars didn't 
get many points that day, but the team played like a dream. That's the 
way your guys played all year. And that's why you're sporting that 80 
percent winning percentage at Kentucky. And that's why Kentucky won the 
championship that it deserved. And I hope America will remember a lot 
not only about the stunning play of Tony Delk, who deserved to be the 
outstanding player of the tournament, but also about the teamwork that 
you exhibited all year long. And we congratulate you. Thank you very 
much.
    Now, I would like to ask Coach Summitt and Coach Pitino to come up 
here and say whatever they would like to say and bring whatever players 
they would like to play, because I know all of you really came to see 
them. But they are all very welcome at the White House.
    Thank you.

[At this point, Ms. Summitt thanked her University of Tennessee women's 
team for its efforts during the season and congratulated the University 
of Kentucky men's team for its success. She then introduced players 
Michelle Marciniak and Latina Davis, who presented gifts to the 
President and Vice President. Next, Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino 
congratulated the Tennessee women's team and introduced players Mark 
Pope and Tony Delk, who presented gifts to the President and Vice 
President.]

    The President. I must say I liked having Mark up here. I was sort of 
standing in the shade back there--[laughter]--away from all the bright 
lights. It was great. What do you think? Hold it up.
    Again, let me say--we're going to take formal little photos now with 
the two teams, and then we will have a receiving line in the next room. 
So we will break up, but before we break up, again let me thank these 
two great universities, these two great States, and the coaches and the 
teams.
    I think that America likes March Madness and likes college 
basketball as much as anything else because it is both an individual and 
a team sport. And it has both rules and creativity, discipline and 
energy. And in that sense, it is sort of a symbol of what's best about 
our country when things are going well.
    And I hope we can all remember that. We all need to live with rules 
and creativity, with discipline and energy, and we all need to remember 
that, however good any of us are, we're all on a team. And when we're on 
the team, the team's doing well, the rest of us, we do pretty well 
individually.
    So thank you all for that, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:45 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Lt. Gov. Steve Henry of Kentucky.