[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 8 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Page 372]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Honoring the NCAA Soccer Champion University of Virginia 
Cavaliers

February 25, 1994

    Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, Senator Robb, Mrs. Reid, 
and to the captains and all the members of this wonderful team, and your 
coach, and your athletic director, and your parents and friends.
    We're very honored to have you here today. I was thinking about this 
a little bit. The Vice President is right, he and I are from the South, 
and when we were boys nobody played soccer down there, and we had to 
learn about it really through our children. And one of my most prized 
pictures is a picture of my daughter trying to do what they did. It 
hangs on my wall in the White House now, with Chelsea kicking her soccer 
ball. I have followed this game closely since she was about 5 and 
entered a league which had both boys and girls in it. And I watched the 
little girls grow up in this league, fighting with the boys on the 
soccer field. It was a great experience for me. And I'm really proud 
that the United States is going to hold the World Cup here. I think it 
will do a lot for soccer in the United States and a lot for our image as 
a soccer-playing country throughout the world.
    But I think that today I'd like to focus on what this fine team has 
done for the sport in the United States and to thank you for that. I 
also noticed that, Coach, my researchers tell me that your record is 
252-54 and 29 ties. And if that is true, we would like to invite you to 
become a congressional liaison. [Laughter] We would like margins like 
that on our major bills. I don't know how you did that.
    I also was thinking we might recruit your goaltender. Jeff Causey, 
where are you? That's what being President is like; people take shots at 
you all the time, day in and day out. [Laughter] And we decided that you 
could help us be in the right sort of frame of mind to come to work 
every day.
    We're delighted to have you here. We're proud of you. We're proud of 
what you represent and proud of the teamwork that you represent. And 
that's the last point I'd like to make.
    One of the things I really like about soccer is that even though 
people are given the chance to star, to excel, to score, it really is 
fundamentally a team sport. It's a sport where people really have to 
think about what's best for the team and how they can do well together. 
And that's a lesson we're trying to get across to America now. There are 
a lot of economic and educational and social problems that we can only 
face if we start to think of each other again as well as ourselves and 
start to play on a team again. And so you've set a good example not only 
for soccer but for the way we might do better in our own lives. We thank 
you for that and wish you well. Congratulations.

Note: The President spoke at 3:30 p.m. in the Indian Treaty Room at the 
Old Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Landra 
Reid, mother of Cavaliers soccer player Key Reid and wife of Senator 
Harry Reid of Nevada; Cavaliers coach Bruce Arena; and Jim Copeland, 
director of athletics, University of Virginia. A tape was not available 
for verification of the content of these remarks.