This September, I gave the First-Year Lecture to incoming '15s and talked about how globalization is changing our lives. But I ran out of time and never revealed my last Powerpoint slide: A green and gold "G," the logo of the Green Bay Packers.
For those of you who don't know, Green Bay is a small city in northern Wisconsin and the Packers are a team in the National Football League.
They are publicly owned, meaning that they will never have a rich owner who can move them somewhere else. The Packers are special and their fans are fiercely loyal.
The team is also exceptionally talented, in terms of management, players and coaching staff. This past season the Packers won the Super Bowl.
As a long-standing Packer fan, I frequently visit their website and watch the video interviews with players and the head coach. Last year, as the Packers were making their improbable run for the Super Bowl, the press often asked the players what it would take to win the next game. As if scripted, they would reply, "We have to take advantage of opportunities."
If they won the game, the press would ask how they did it. The inevitable reply was, "We took advantage of opportunities and made some big plays." If they lost, the reply was always, "We failed to take advantage of opportunities."
I confess that I grew tired of these seemingly superficial answers. They were obviously (and perhaps mindlessly) repeating a phrase drilled into their heads by their coaches.
But the more I thought about it, the automatic replies took on a deeper meaning.
Although a football game lasts for 60 minutes, there are only 11 minutes of actual playing time (according to a recent survey in The Wall Street Journal). Of those 11 minutes, any given player will participate in just a few plays.
In other words, all the months of preparation and training, all the hard work and study boils down to only a few moments per game. If you see an opportunity during that small window of time and you take advantage of it, you can make a difference. You never know when it will happen, but one play can shift the momentum of the whole game. Any instant could be a make or break moment.
Thus, any time you are on the field, the next play may be the most important one of the game. If there is an opportunity to make a play, you have to seize the opportunity because it may never come up again. The door will close, and you will always look back with regret.
What the heck do the Packers have to do with first-year students?
All of you have put in a tremendous amount of hard work and sacrifice to get to Dartmouth. Now you are here. Now you are in the game. But the game is short. Four years may sound like a long time, but it will go by much faster than high school did.
Dartmouth offers you tremendous opportunities: the opportunity to do research with a professor, or go on a fantastic study abroad program, or get an incredible internship anywhere in the world. The D-Plan gives you the flexibility to try new things that you could never do at any other college or university. Dartmouth also has centers, institutes and programs that are just waiting for you to get involved.
This is a special time in your life when you are not tied down by obligations to work or family. These are things that you might only be able to do now.
You've just arrived at Dartmouth, but your time here is short. The clock is already ticking. Plan ahead. Take the odd course that is outside your major that has always interested you. Go live in a country that you always wanted to see. Go for the special internship you've been dreaming about. Find out what the various centers here have to offer.
Dartmouth is offering you four years of adventure rich with opportunity. Take advantage of opportunities.
