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    "label": "Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered at the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 1975 Awards Luncheon [Ford Speech or Statement]",
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    "title": "Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered at the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 1975 Awards Luncheon [Ford Speech or Statement]",
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    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/35/3376/7337635/content/library/document/0248/whpr19750107-004.pdf",
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    "ocrText": "Digitized from Box 6 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library\nEMBARGOED FOR RELEASE\nJANUARY 7, 1975\nUNTIL 12:45 P. M., EST\nOffice of the White House Press Secretary\nTHE WHITE HOUSE\nTEXT OF REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT\nTO BE DELIVERED AT THE\nNATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION'S\n1975 AWARDS LUNCHEON\nSHERATON PARK HOTEL\nMay I thank you most sincerely for this award -- and for the good will and\ngood wishes that it represents. It will always occupy an honored position\nin my office, in my life, and in my memories. I thank you very much.\nI want you to know that I feel very much at home here today because if\nyou stop to think about it -- the athletic director of any college and the\nPresident of the United States, have a great deal in common. We both need\nthe talent and cooperation of others to succeed. We both get a lot more\ncriticism for the losses than we get credit for the wins. We both buy aspirin\nby the six-pack -- and we both have a certain lack of permanence in our\njobs.\nAs one coach put it to me: He didn't so much mind the fact that his name\non the office door was written in chalk\n...\nit was that big wet sponge\nhanging beside it!\nBut I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you the problems of being an athletic\ndirector or head coach. For instance, I see my good friend Bear Bryant\nsitting here\nI was talking to Bear and he said we both had the very same\nexperience on New Year's Day. I said, \"How is that possible? I was skiing\nand you were at the Orange Bowl. He said, \"That's what I mean. We both\nhit the top and after that, it was all down hill!\"\nI think Alabama played a superb game but Notre Dame just seemed to have\nthat something extra.\nIt was once said that many of Britain's battles were won on the playing fields\nof Eton.\nWe could also say that amateur athletics has developed much of the muscle\nthat has built and defended this country. And though a young person might\nnot go to college, no youngster grows up in America today without some\ncompetitive sport. Sports are not only a preparation for life, their spirit is\npart of the very essence of the American competitive system.\nWe have a saying in my home state of Michigan. As the lakes, rivers and\nponds freeze over, the sight of eager children skimming over the ice is a\ncommon one. And if you ask a young boy or girl how he or she ever learned\nto ice skate the answer out our way is a simple one: \"I got up when I fell\ndown.\"\nWe have got to get up here in America. As a nation, we must be physically,\nand mentally fit because the times demand that we not only compete but that\nwe excel. And we must do it with enthusiasm -- the enthusiasm found on\nthe fields of sport. Emerson once said: \"Nothing great was ever achieved\nwithout enthusiasm.\"\nThis is a time for greatness in our nation and a time for enthusiasm.\n(MORE)\n-2-\nIn this spirit, I accept the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 1975\nTheodore Roosevelt Award. I accept it not for what I might have achieved\nin the past -- but for what I will strive to accomplish, with the help of all\nAmericans, in the future.\nI thank you.\n#\n#\n#"
}