Good afternoon honored guests, esteemed faculty, parents, and the amazing graduating class of 2020. Before I begin my speech, we should note all who could not be here today through illness, bad Wi-Fi, or untimely passing. We love them and miss them dearly. However, we realize that they are all here with us in spirit on this joyous day.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude for having been chosen to speak on such a momentous occasion. Of all the members of the class of 2020 I can imagine that there are many who might be as qualified than I am or perhaps more so. But I was chosen. So, I get to tell my story and give my advice.
In West Virginia High School Track and Field, there is an event called the 300 intermediate hurdles. The runners start a quarter of the way around the track, and all come towards the same finish line that is used for all events. The hurdles are high, but not that high. I just googled this while writing and it seems that they are 36 inches. Three feet doesn’t seem that daunting, but you’re running at full speed and you have to clear them and not lose your stride. If you find yourself jumping hurdles, you’re doing it wrong. The key is to kick with your leading leg and then snap your hip over with your trailing leg so you’re basically a real big bounding step.
I was in track for three years, and if you can believe it from looking at me was a fairly successful sprinter given the context of school size and state. During my track career, I think I participated in every possible event except for long jump and the distance races. This happened because my coach, Harrison County Sports legend Ted Robinette, god rest his soul, would say “MIHELIC! You’re running the 400 relay” when I had never practiced the 400 relay and the thing I really wanted do was run my 20 second event and then go flirt with girls and smoke cigarettes. You know, the things a track athlete does.
One meet Coach Robinette did that thing, asking me what I thought of the 300 hurdles and I told him they were high and the race was longer than I wanted to run and he told me I was running the 300 and that’s fine I’ll be ok since I ran the shuttle hurdles I’ll know what to do. Now, here’s where I point out the intermediate hurdles are six inches higher and I’m not that tall.
Class of 2020, let me tell you there is nothing like the tension and anticipation you feel when you’re in the starting blocks coiled and ready for the pistol to go and then you start thinking if its ever coming and sometimes you get caught off guard. But the starting for the 300 is away from everyone, on the back straightaway where the first handoff zone for the 4 x 100 relay is so you’re all alone and your teammates on the bleachers are flirting with girls anyway and it’s just you and the lane and the hurdles. It’s a lot like right now, here.
The gun goes off and you set off at a full sprint like you know how to do and I, this specific time, started to realize I had no plan. If you do the hurdles a lot, you know how many steps to take, you know how many times you breathe during the race and you have a plan. I didn’t have a plan. I ran ran ran, then hopped. Then I did it again. I was in the lead. I was on one of the outer lanes, so you feel like you’re in the lead, but we were coming up to the last turn and I started getting a bit cocky. I had this. I was going to win the heat. Those girls will be impressed.
I was rounding that turn and then I felt another feeling that is unmatchable, that of your body failing you. I came up on one of the last hurdles, right before the home stretch. I kicked my front leg and that back leg just said no. Instead of clearing that hurdle and winning that heat, my foot hit clear in the center of the crosspiece of the hurdle.
And we’re going to put a pin in that right there. Because this is a graduation speech, it is clearly not just an excuse to talk about the highlights of my sporting life which is half a lifetime ago now. NO! this is a didactic frame because we’re going to talk about failure.
I have failed in many ways, many times. I was unemployed for two years, each week reaching out to try to find a job, any job. I got engaged at way too young an age to a great person but who I was not the right person for. Twice I ran for election and lost. Twice I was demoted at work. Twice I was escorted home by the police. Once they didn’t take me home.
I applied to MFA programs in 2004 all out of state because I wanted to leave West Virginia and find greener pastures, but I didn’t get in anywhere, so I was in West Virginia for another year. I had all sorts of crushes go unrequited, and some of those people I even told about my crush and they said we’re better friends. The specific person I’m thinking of right here was right since at the time I was waving a whole army’s worth of red flags (Which makes sense since I just told you about them in the last paragraph there). Just this year I applied to Harvard and Harvard said we don’t want you here. I flew to LA to be on Jeopardy only to be reminded now that when I was on the television, I got a question about Rocky Balboa “wrong”.
Failure can define you if you let it define you. If you allow it to be the final act in your story. But what it can also be is a teacher. What you learn through failure is the humility to know where your weaknesses are, and where you can improve. If you’re failing at something — if you’re trying for the first time or you’re failing at something you though you have mastered, every mistake is a teacher. True wisdom is being able to find those moments and have the bravery to admit to yourself that you have failed this time. You are not a failure. This resilience is a mark of character that you can learn through adversity. The most interesting person has a lot of scars. If you’ve never failed, you don’t know who you are.
I’m going to take this pin back out now.
I kicked that hurdle and it fell over and I went tumbling after. I was splayed out on the track on the part of the track that is right in front of the main bleachers where everyone was sitting. And I got up. And I started running towards the finish line. There were two more hurdles. I didn’t try the fancy hurdle step, but instead did the inelegant little hop over the last two and finished.
I didn’t come in first. But I tell you what. I didn’t fucking come in last either.
It is a lesson I learned from my father a long time ago but never really understood until I got older: “Suck it up and drive on”.
And here is where I stop for a second and transition. My father was a huge part of helping me develop intellectually. I feel his absence today. He set an example in showing what can be achieved and the hard work it takes to keep developing your knowledge, like watching him study hard when he had to take the boards again. He and my mom encouraged me by letting me explore my interests. They didn’t work against me when I decided I wanted to study poetry nor did they kick me out too often when I wanted to stay inside reading the encyclopedia or make me go to bed when I was staying up late just to finish one more chapter.
My parents were my first and best teachers, but I have had the good fortune to have great teachers at every level. From Pat Clayton in elementary school to Karen Morgan and Mary Anne Ferris in high school to Doctor P and Jim Harms and Mark Brazitis and Greg Eiselein and Tim Dayton and Christina Hauck and Joe Stachnick beyond that, I have been fortunate to find guides who have helped me develop by sharing their knowledge. I have found two more mentors here at Roosevelt, and the sadness I have in leaving the school is tempered with the knowledge that Professors Langer and Ziliak are now a part of my life and we live in parallel. Roosevelt’s economic department has been an intellectual home for me like no other. I have been challenged and grown academically and personally. Here I want to note all my peers who I was fortunate to work with, learning and growing together. I have many friends I have made through my schooling, but meeting Anita takes the cake. There’s not enough praise I can give her as all human languages are too constrained in the face of her greatness. She is the most important person in my life. She makes me laugh and she makes me want to be a better person, and with her I know I can do anything.
I know that because I have been through a lot and have picked myself off the ground and kept running. Those mistakes and how you approach them are what define you. When you fall, will you get back up?
And class of 2020, that’s what I have to share with you. This year is not a good year to be graduating. Many of us are trying to start our lives or at the very least a new chapter. There are a lot of scary things out there from a virus to a pandemic to Murder Hornets and near-earth asteroids. We cannot live in fear but learn from our mistakes and know that when we fall down, the best thing we can do is pop back up and keep running.
Thank you, and good luck.
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