Steve Smith's Michigan State University Commencement Address: Achievement or Fulfillment?

Good afternoon! Go Green! President Stanley, Provost Woodruff, and the Board of Trustees:  Thank you for inviting me back home. To the administration, faculty, and staff — to the proud families and friends who traveled here to celebrate your loved ones —  to my forever dorm-mates from Wonders Hall — and to each and every one of you in the resilient, inspiring Class of 2022: I am so proud to be your fellow Michigan State alum. Congratulations! I am deeply honored that you have let me be a part of your special day. And I am so grateful for this honorary degree. We all came to Michigan State for different reasons. I came for two: Magic Johnson, and my mama, Clara Bell Smith.  I wanted to be on this campus because I wanted to stay close to family. By the time I graduated, the people I met here had become family. To this day, they still are.  They’re my closest friends. They were my groomsmen. They’re the people who call me when things are going well and who show up for me when the going gets tough. Above all else, graduates, I hope that many years from now, you will still feel as close to one another as you do today.  Even through the long, lonely months that kept so many of us apart, you went through this once-in-a-lifetime chapter together. And these Spartans will always be there for you. *** Now, maybe you didn’t choose Michigan State because of Magic or because of your mama. But in coming here, you chose to surround yourselves with good and giving people: your roommates and friends, your classmates and teammates, your professors and T.A.s.  You’ve chosen to surround yourself with smart and supportive Spartans.  Spartans who stand up for what’s right and who speak out against what’s wrong.  Spartans who are courageous and effective, and who deserve credit for pushing the school to be more multicultural and more inclusive — and to take nice words about diversity in a strategic plan and make sure they’re made real. And as you walk together this weekend — in the same way that you’ve stuck by each other through an extraordinary and exhausting experience — you are fulfilling my favorite proverb: “They who walk with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.”  In choosing to come to this campus, you chose to walk with the wise. When you cross the stage and take hold of your diplomas, you’ll be doing it one more time. And when you stay in each other’s lives in the years ahead, you’ll grow even wiser thanks to one another. But once you go out into the wider world, how can you make sure you’re still surrounding yourself with good, giving, grounded people? How do you even figure out who is wise — and who to walk with? Here’s one thing I know for sure: you can’t tell that by someone’s age, race, or gender. You can’t tell it by their degrees, their title, or the car that they drive. You certainly can’t tell it by the number of followers they have. One thing I know for sure is that while it sometimes feels easier to walk with people who look and think like you, that’s not the wisest way. The equity and inclusion we value has many dimensions: race, nationality, gender, wealth, education. At its heart, it’s about giving everyone an opportunity. Everyone. So as you leave Michigan State and go on to great things, I hope you’ll find a way to give an opportunity to someone who doesn’t look like you. Another thing I’ve come to realize about the people I want to be around — and the person I want to be — is something I learned from my coaches, including Johnny Goston, Jud Heathcote, and Coach Izzo, who made me his first recruit 35 years ago. It’s something that I found myself learning all over again from the kids I’ve coached, covered, and cheered for, including my sons. And it’s what I want to talk with you about today. *** President Stanley[1] was kind enough to recall that when I graduated, I held Michigan State’s all-time scoring record.  I can remember the intensity growing as I got closer and closer to that number. A teammate told me how many points I’d need to average my senior year. Reporters noticed when I was 200 points away, and then 100, and then when I was in striking distance. And then the big moment came. [pause] Usually, this would be the part of the story where I tell you about the feeling of breaking the record. How it felt to charge down the lane, lose my defender with a half-spin move, and see the ball swish through the net. But here’s the honest truth:  To this day, I don’t know if it was a free throw, a floater, or a three from downtown. I don’t know if it happened in the first half or the second. I truly don’t remember the shot. And maybe that sounds surprising. But here’s what I do remember: My mind immediately flashed back to playing in my backyard on Detroit’s East Side. My dad Donald Smith, had poured concrete behind our house and put up a hoop. On that little court, I learned to dunk by jumping off milk crates and learned how to pivot and dribble around the cracks in the concrete. That’s where my mind went at the end: it went to the beginning. To my fifth-grade championship at Courville Elementary. To the pickup games, the Hawthorne Rec Center scrimmages, the high school tournaments playing for Pershing, and to the practice drills. <...