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As we said, we're first-generation graduates. To be part of Generations of Excellence
is a great reward for our parents — Pauline's parents, my parents —
and their determination and their sacrifice to put us through school.
As long as we've got a Geezle walking the grounds, the Geezles are going to be involved
at the university. They're going to be involved in the academic side, they're going to be involved
in the athletics side,
because it all means so much to all of these guys.
When I look at the University of North Texas and how it shaped me —
the values of work hard work and study, the collaborative effort with the professors —
being part of something that at the time was regional
that's going to, you know, I believe, soon will be a national organization that I
want to be part of and build into.
I've got to give back. I've got to give back and help the very people that helped me.
It was important for me to, you know, take an active role and not be on the sideline.
I've worked with a lot of challenger brands through the years
and there's this connotation that that's a bad thing
but, Apple was a challenger brand at one point, Nike was a challenger brand,
Google ...
all of the companies that we love and all the brands that we love
were challengers at one point, and I would love to see North Texas
embrace that challenger point of view,
because it forces you to take the chances
and to do the things that others won't. Instead of trying to be what a
university should be
to challenge what a university should be.
Students if they go out and challenge the status quo
and they say, you know what this is a problem, but I'm not going to complain about it,
I'm going to see what I can do to make it better and possibly solve it
that's the best thing that they can do to help move our society forward.
I feel very, very humbled, and I don't mean that word
lightly. You know, North Texas has had an amazing
group of graduates, an amazing group of alumni
and the expectation that I would ever be
sort of honored as one of those alumni never entered my mind.
I'm very emotional about my love for the university,
because what it did for me, it shaped me as a person, it prepared me for the future.
And my life was revealed to me at North Texas,
and that's as much as I could tell you.