"Ex-senator urges: Reach for the stars"

Carolyn Thornton
The Providence Journal
July 1, 2006

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SOUTH KINGSTOWN - In his 72 years, George Mitchell has served not only as a Democratic senator from Maine, but also as the Senate majority leader and a federal judge.

He spent the better part of five years in Northern Ireland chairing the peace negotiations that led to the Belfast Peace Agreement, signed on Good Friday 1998.

He currently is chairman of the board of the Walt Disney Co.

In March, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig asked him to lead an investigation into the alleged steroid use in the league.

But growing up in the small town of Waterville, Maine, he was known only as "Johnny Mitchell's kid brother, the one who isn't any good."

Although George Mitchell says that growing up in the shadows of three older brothers who were all far more talented than he on the basketball court was extremely difficult at times, it also deepened his resolve to succeed in other areas of his life.

"If anybody, including your brothers, says you can't do something, go ahead and do it, anyway," Mitchell said last night in his address at the 2006 World Scholar-Athlete Games. "In life, in art, in sports, you only succeed greatly if you dare to."

Addressing a captive audience at the University of Rhode Island gymnasium where his brothers Johnny and Robbie both played for legendary coach Frank Keaney in the 1950s, Mitchell spoke of the valuable lessons he learned from basketball even if he was not as good as his siblings.

The commitment – that is, the dedication, training and intense concentration – required in sports are qualities "essential to success in virtually every area of life," he said.

Mitchell also spoke about the value of teamwork, encouraging the students before him to develop a support system if they don't have one already.

"We all need the help, the advice, the love and companionship of others," he said. "The absence of those makes life less than complete."

Despite all his accomplishments, Mitchell – the son of an immigrant mother who could neither read nor write, and a father who was an orphan son of immigrants from Ireland and didn't make it past the fourth grade – says he still very much remembers all the uncertainty of teen years – the low self-esteem, the low self- worth, the lack of direction.

Still, says Mitchell – who is heavily involved with three scholarship programs, including the Mitchell Institute, which provides a yearly scholarship to all 130 high schools in Maine – "there is a potential that, if unlocked, could provide many stories of great success."

He told the students not to underestimate themselves, to be willing to take risks and to make their lives "a never-ending search for respect," both for oneself and for others.

In closing, Mitchell implored the students to dedicate themselves to the cause of creating "equal opportunity" and "equal justice" everywhere.

"Commit yourself to conduct yourself so that it will be true everywhere on this earth," he said, "that every single boy and girl, born in Africa, Asia or any other part of the world, has the same chance that I had and that each of you have had – a chance to go as high as and as far, and to reach for the stars and to achieve them if they're willing to work and dedicate and commit themselves. That is your challenge, and you must make it your destiny."

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