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5月10日，NFL联盟最受欢迎的单身汉之一J.J.Watt在威斯康辛麦迪逊大学做了一个非常激励人心的毕业演讲，演讲主要以讲自己的成长故事来激励毕业生。
熟悉NFL的朋友们对休斯顿这位明星一定非常熟悉，J.J.Watt是现役最牛X的橄榄球运动员，没有之一！借用其他真球迷对他的总结，这位出生于1989年的大个子对进攻球员来说绝对系怪物般存在，有天赋但还要比谁都努力，比赛场上意志力相当高，手骨折了打了绑带依然上场干。
2018年，美国《时代》杂志公布了2018时代百大人物名单（2018 TIME 100）！在全世界票选出100位影响世界的人物，休斯顿的大明星J.J.Watt光荣上榜！现在一起和英语演讲君听听这位牛x的球员！99号就是JJ Watt的毕业演讲。
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Please help me in welcoming, the man who's been called a beast on the field and a saint off, JJ Watt.
>> J.J. Watt: I broke it.Sorry.Hang on.I'm fixing it.
All right. We're good. I think.
Madison, it is absolutely incredible to be here.
Thank you very much for having me in this beautiful city.
I've obviously lived in Texas for the last eight or so years, and it's been fantastic. The people are great. The food is delicious, and they love football, which is obviously good for me.
But I have to admit that it's great to be back in a place where I can order fried cheese curds and chocolate custard and not get looked at like I have three heads.
I've been trying to spread the word.
Fried cheese curds just will not catch on. Last night, I sat down to a Friday fish fry, with some potato pancakes and a delicious Spotted Cow.
You do yeah, yeah you have had one or two yourselves, I know. You do not realize how difficult it is to get Spotted Cow outside the State of Wisconsin, until you live outside the State of Wisconsin.
Every time I come back here, I pack it in my suitcase and I smuggle it out like I'm Pablo Escobar.
If anybody here lives in Texas, my fridge is stocked! But in all seriousness, I'm extremely humbled and honored to be here today.
I want to say thank you first to the Chancellor.
I want to say thank you to the faculty, the senior class officials, and, of course, to the University of Wisconsin graduating class of 2019.
When I was first asked to be the commencement speecher Geez Louise great job J.J. There we go. Maybe I should have wrote it down.
When I was first asked to be the commencement speaker, I had media a couple days after I had a press conference
in Houston and they asked, "Have you written your speech yet?"
And I said, no. I don't write speeches. And they said, "Well, what are you going to have on the Teleprompter?
And I said, nothing, leave it black.
I don't care.
And then after that people reached out to me.
I had many, many people reach out to me and said, "I want to help you write your speech." Professional speech writers said, I will help you write your speech.
All of these people said I want to help your write your speech. What do you want to write? I can write it for you.
And My response was and I hope I'm right I think they asked me to be their speaker, because they want to hear what I have to say. Not what you have to say.Thank you.
Not what a speech writer can write for me.
Not what I can sit down and write out over the course of multiple months, what I think you want to hear.
I think, and I hope, that you want to hear what I have learned throughout my time, and what the University of Wisconsin has taught me.
What my career has taught me. What some of the things that I've been through in my life have taught me.
One person on social media, who I assume is here today, even reached out and said, how dare you?
I worked for four years for my degree.
How dare you not prepare for your speech?Okay?
Calm down.
I got it. All right?
Just because I didn't write a speech down does not mean that I didn't prepare. I spent time watching YouTube videos of many commencement speeches from many different people.
Just like you, I read a whole lot of Wikipedia pages.
And last night, I crammed it all in and wrote something down on this little piece of paper.
But I am prepared. I did think it through.
And when I was watching those videos, I learned a lot of different things. One thing that I saw, was that a lot of people made lists.
Lists of life rules and goals and things you should follow.
And I thought to myself I don't think I'm a list guy.
I don't know if I don't know if I'm going to write a list.
I don't know if I want to There's a lot of people in this audience that are a helluva lot smarter than me, and I probably shouldn't be telling them how to live life. And then I started to write my speech and what I wanted to talk about not write it up here.
And what I wanted to talk about was Dream Big Work Hard.
I started my foundation when I was at this university as a junior.
I got a whole lot of help from the legal department at this school. They helped me work through the 501C3 paperwork, they had me work through how to start a foundation, and Dream Big Work Hard was my motto. Because I truly believe that you should have as big of dreams as you want in this world.
Never let anybody tell you you can't accomplish those dreams. I once had a teacher that told me my dream
of one day playing in the NFL was unrealistic. Well, hello.
I also had people who believed in me. And those people helped me get to where I was. You should have as big of dreams as you want to have.
Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. But to accomplish those dreams you must be willing to put in the work.
You must be willing to put in the time, the effort, the energy, the sacrifices that it takes to make those big dreams come true.
And so as I sat there, and I started going through what I wanted to say to you today, and how I wanted to get my message across, I thought to myself, well, son of a gun, this
sounds a lot like a list.
So what I have for you today, is four lessons that I've learned about following your dreams.
I followed my dreams all the way to where I am today, and I have a whole lot more that I would like to do, but along the way to this point, I have learned a lot, and I would like to share that with you today.
I grew up 45 minutes from this stadium, in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Yeah, okay. We don't have that many people in the town.
Okay?
So I know you're lying. Thank you. I appreciate it.
When you're born in the State of Wisconsin, your childhood closet consists of three things: green and gold, red and white, and camo.
Maybe some blaze orange in 2019. I don't know... I had the obligatory Brett Favre jersey in my closet, but what I really gravitated towards was the red and white.
I wanted to be a Wisconsin Badger. Truth be told, when I was young, I wanted to be a hockey player.
I did the skate with the Badgers. I loved it. I wanted to be a hockey player here. As I grew older, it changed to football.
I came to my first football game in 2005, in this stadium.
I remember everything about it, just like I am sure you remember everything about your first time on this campus or at this stadium. Hopefully, I am not involved, because that's going to make me feel really old.
Some guy here today brought a picture of me, and he said he painted it when he was in eighth grade. That hurt. That hurt.
I just turned 30, and I'm having a tough time dealing with it, guys. Anyways, my first day here, when I came to the game, I did the tailgating. I can still smell the bratwurst. We played Cornhole. The crisp was in the air. The leaves were changing colors. It's magical. It's truly magical.
And I know that you all know what I'm talking about. I walked into the stadium and I could hear the band playing.
Oh, all right. Yeah. You guys! Shout out to Leckrone, huh?
50 years. What the? Hell, yeah.
I could feel the tradition. I could feel the history. This place has something special about it. On that day, John Stocco in the fourth quarter with 25 seconds left, in that endzone right there, ran a quarterback draw to score a touchdown
to beat Michigan.
I remember, I was sitting right over there, in those seats. And I thought to myself, this is it. This is my dream. This is where I want to be. I'm a Wisconsin Badger.
Unfortunately, the coaching staff didn't quite agree.
They said I was too small to play tight end here. They didn't have a scholarship for me. In fairness, I was 6'5" and very skinny and lanky. I looked like one of those blow up things
at a car dealership.
So, I went to Central Michigan. I started my career there as a tight end. I was a starter.
We won the college championship but something always felt off. I felt like I belonged somewhere else. And I felt like that somewhere else was here. I wanted to be a Badger.
I transferred in, and walked on to the university. Now, many people know the store that I delivered pizzas during that time to try to make a little money and help out.
But not many people know this story, because I'm pretty sure I didn't tell this publicly. I used to be that year when I walked on at Wisconsin, I was a maintenance worker in this very stadium. You can ask I swear to God.
You can ask Dick, Darryl, Jeff. I don't know if they still work here some of them I hope they're still with us.We, uh, the best guys. I love them.
No, no, inside jokes. You know, I mean, we're good. We would clean the seats, we would power wash the floors, we would paint the railings. And I specifically remember one day right up there in section AA, I was painting that railing.
Yeah, I painted it, so don't mess it up.
Right up there. We get a 15minute break. And I was sitting there on my break, and I was looking out over the empty field, and I thought to myself, imagine running out of
that tunnel.
Imagine being on that field wearing that uniform. That is my dream.
And every day during spring practice, during training camp, I would go up to that office see the balcony five windows to the right of that was Charlie Partridge's office, my defensive line coach.
I had switched over from tight end to defensive line. Every night at 10:00 p.m. after we was done with starters and coaches' meetings, long after everybody went home, Coach Partridge would go over my scout team film with me.
And he would show me where I should place my hands, how my footwork should look like, what to look for in opposing offenses.
He taught me how to play defensive line. I tell you those stories for two reasons. One, to tell you what an honor it is to be here today. When I was sitting in section AA painting
those railings, I couldn't even have dreamed that I would be standing here in front of you as your commencement speaker.
I also tell you that, because that's the first lesson that I learned about chasing your dreams. The path to your dreams often never goes the way you imagine it will.
When I dreamed about coming to Wisconsin, I dreamed of a scholarship out of high school. I dreamed about starting early on in my career and going on and winning Rose Bowls.
There were no obstacles and challenges. Of course, I'd have to do the workouts and do the schoolwork. But I did not imagine making minimum wage painting railings in the stadium at Camp Randall as a walkon.
And that's my message to you. Even at this point in your life, you may never have imagined how the college career would go. Maybe you didn't start here. Maybe you didn't start in the major you finished in. Maybe there was tough times, adversity and obstacles along the way, but here you are accomplishing one of your dreams.
It will be difficult. It will not look the way you want it to look.
But in the end, if you stay focused, if you stay true, if you have the passion for your dream, you will get there. No matter how difficult that path may be. That leads me to my second lesson that I learned, and that's that nobody accomplishes their dreams alone.
I implore you to find somebody on this planet who has accomplished their dreams without the help of another human being. Nobody does. You need help. Both good and bad. Positive and negative.
Positively, my parents helped me financially when I walked on here, leaving a scholarship behind. Coach Partridge helped me learn how to play the defensive line. I have family, parents, friends, teachers, coaches, teammates that have helped me along the way in so many positive ways.
You might wonder how could you be negatively helped?
In 2011 I was drafted in the first round by the Houston Texans. One of the biggest days of my life. One of my dreams had come true. I was ecstatic. I hugged my family.
My high school coaches were there with me. The people who helped get me there were there. And then I went back to the hotel room that night, I checked my phone, and wanted to see what Twitter was saying and the how the reaction in Houston was.
I clicked the video of the draft party at the stadium in Houston. The first thing I saw was some dude at the top of his lungs booing his heart out. They showed the video of the whole draft party. They all booed me.
The whole place booed me except for like two people. I remember watching the video thinking, all right. There it is.
That's my motivation. You can take negativity one of two ways. I could have said, oh, no, how am I going win these people over? This is terrible. But instead I said this is my motivation.
My entire goal is to come to Houston and to work and earn those people's respect. You can use negative energy to power your dream.
The most recent example of someone helping me came when my 2016 and 2017 seasons were cut short by injury.
In 2016 I had a second back surgery that ended the season.
In 2017 I broke my leg. In between those two things, my girlfriend tore her ACL. I had just recovered from my back injury enough to help her with her ACL in the beginning.
Then, as she got off crutches and she started to walk, but still had to wear a brace, I broke my leg. I couldn't walk. I had to lay on the couch for two months straight and not walk.
And my girlfriend, who was still recovering from her own ACL injury, had to take care of me. I remember specifically sitting in my kitchen one day and I broke down and I cried.
I was devastated. I was in tears, and I just let them flow. I was supposed to be the one taking care of her. I'm supposed to be the one taking care of other people.
I'm not supposed to be the one getting the help. And that's the day I learned that no matter how big you are, no matter how strong you are, no matter how tough you may be, everybody needs to ask for help at some point in their lives.
We all could use a helping hand. We all can use We all can help somebody else. On the path to your dreams, you will not do it alone.
You will need the help of somebody else. Don't be afraid to ask for it. whether it is personal, professional, whatever
it may be, don't be afraid to ask for help. And, also, don't be afraid to lend a helping hand to others.
There's no reason we can't all accomplish our dreams, and we can't all help each other accomplish our dreams.
The third thing that I realized that just as you can learn from chasing your dreams, you can also learn from your nightmares. In 2017, August, one of the biggest storms
in U.S. history hit Houston. The city was under water.
Flooding, people losing homes and people stranded. My team was in New Orleans. We were flying back and we got diverted to Dallas. We were stuck at Dallas, and we couldn't get home.
On TV, we watched as we the streets we drove on, the houses we knew, everything was underwater. We had families stranded back there, teammates with wives, children, stranded in their home. There was nothing we could do. We felt helpless. I felt helpless.
The city I loved, the city that supports me, was in need, and I could not help them. I got my cellphone out. I sat in the hotel room, and I asked social media if it would help me raise \$200,000.
I knew what I would do with \$200,000. I was going to buy food, water. Diapers and paper towels. I was going to help in any way I could. I knew I would do that. Is it started to go up a little bit, and it started to go up, and up, and up, and in the end, it was over \$41 million.
I'm going to be honest with ya, I didn't know what I was going to do with \$41 million.
One of the first people I reached out to was a fellow Badger.
You're going to be surprised at how many fellow Badgers you have in the world and how tight this fraternity is. I reached out to Jake Wood, started Team Rubicon. He has done incredible work throughout his career in disaster relief and helping out different disasters, Hurricane Katrina and everything. He was one of my first calls, and he helped me figure it out.
and we sat down and we talked through it and we came up with a plan. Before the hurricane and before the fundraiser,
I had developed a bit of a negative attitude, a cynical attitude towards the world. We live in a very negative time.
The news is negative. The lead stories are always divisive. There's things that are dividing and pulling us apart.
I was worried. I didn't have a whole lot of hope. But in an instant, with that fundraiser, with the letters, the donations, hundreds of thousands of people pouring in their support from all over the world, not caring about the religion, the race, the ethnicity, the financial status of the people they were helping.
Not knowing the people they were helping. The willingness to step up and help out their fellow human gave me hope. There's reason. There is good. There is true Humanity out there in the world. We just need to shine a light on it.
That hurricane fundraiser for me shined the light on how many good people there are in the world. It doesn't always make headlines. It doesn't always dominate our social media
feeds.
But I promise you, there is so much more good out in the world than we realize. And the more that we can help to get that good out there, and to shine that light on that good, we truly can make a difference. So I learned from that.
Thank you.
I learned from that, that even on your darkest days, even throughout your nightmares, when the sky is literally falling,
you can learn from it. You can grow from it. There is a silver lining that you can find. I implore you.
As you go through your journey, and you chase your dreams, be sure to find those silver linings on your darkest days. There are going to be nightmares.
I wish I could say there aren't. But it's just the truth. You'll go through some very difficult times as you navigate these waters moving forward. When you go through those tough days, when you go through those difficult times, remember to learn something from them. Remember that you can rise above them. And remember that there's an opportunity to
grow.
The final thing that I learned from chasing my dreams is that I have a whole lot more left to learn. I know that I don't know everything. Nobody in the world has all the answers.
They can lie to you and say that they do. They can post on their social media and act like they have a perfect life.
But nobody does. There's a lot that have great lives, and I
am fortunate enough to be one of them. But nobody is perfect. Nobody has it all figured out. When you came to Madison, you may have had an idea of what you wanted your major to be.
But I am sure a lot of you didn't. When I sit here and I think about what I want to do after my football career some day, some days I think I have all the answers, some days I know exactly where I am going and what I want to be. Other days I sit there with my cup of coffee, I stare blankly, and I think,
what the hell am I going to do with my life? I am sure you have all been there. You are at the point where you have your entire life ahead of you.
You just earned a degree from one of the best universities in the country, and you have an entire world and so many opportunities sitting in front of you.
You may not know what your dream is. You may not know what exactly you want to accomplish, and that's okay. But when you do figure it out, when you do remember, the four things I talked about today, when you figure your dream out, remember, it will not be a straight path.
Stay committed. Never lose sight of what it is you want to
accomplish. Don't be afraid to ask for help along the
way. And don't be afraid to help others along their
path. Remember that there will be dark days. You will go through difficult times. But they are learning opportunities, they're growing opportunities, you can come out on the other side better than you went in.
And remember there's still a whole lot left for you to learn.
Nobody has all the answers. You probably never will. But that's okay.
Keep learning. Keep inspiring. Keep striving to be the best version of yourself. Today, you're accomplishing one of your parents’biggest dreams. Hopefully one of your own as well.
Hopefully We hope. And tomorrow when you wake up -- probably around like 2:00 p.m. You're going to begin a journey towards new dreams.
You're going to have new goals. You're going to have new things you want to accomplish. As you go along that journey towards your new dreams, remember to help a few people out along the way.
Remember to try and change the world for the better as you go.
This is an incredible place that we live in. It's an incredible time. If we each do a little bit, if we each try and help each other out, if we're each not afraid to ask for help, we can do some unbelievable things. Together we can change the world. One person at a time. Congratulations, and thank you to the class of 2019! On, Wisconsin!Thank you！
体重近290磅的JJ Watt，对进攻选手来说真的不好突破。休斯顿市长西尔维斯特特纳（Sylvester Turner）是这么评价他的，"Watt作为一名球员同时又是一位领导者。他为这个城市做出的贡献是巨大的。
2017年，飓风哈维（Hurricane Harvey ）一场历史性的风暴，给休斯顿带来了巨大损失。50英寸的降雨摧毁了30万间民宅，剥夺了人的生命。J·J对飓风灾后重建的贡献与在球场上的贡献一样巨大，他筹集了超过3700万美元的资金，向灾民提供了水，食物和物资。在这个过程中，他将休斯敦人的精神体现的淋漓尽致。”
市长甚至建议在自己退休后，让J.J Watt作下一任休斯顿市长，因为Watt的影响力不止体现在休斯顿，还影响世界。
It is that time of year on campus again—the ramp-up to finals week and graduation. When I am on campus, I feel the nerves of thousands of soon-to-be graduates gripping my chest as they crawl to the finish line. Compounding those nerves is the uncertainty of after-college life in the “real world,” which I become less and less confident exists every year.
At the moment this transition is realized, Wisconsin football legend J.J. Watt will be there to encourage students to be brave in the face of their upcoming challenges. UW announced on Feb. 6 that Watt would be the commencement speaker on May 11 inside Camp Randall Stadium.
In a lot of ways, this is an excellent choice for a commencement address. Watt invested in himself and paid the dividends forward. It is hard to find a better metaphor for the Wisconsin Idea—that “...education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom.”
First, Watt is a symbol of grit, an invaluable attribute for graduates heading into their respective vocations. After playing a year at Central Michigan in 2007, he transferred to UW-Madison to walk on to the football program (Hey, there’s a good book about Wisconsin’s walk-on tradition).
From there, he worked his way to being one of the most dominant defensive players in college football, was drafted No. 11 overall by the Houston Texans in the 2011 NFL Draft, and has earned defensive player of the year honors three times in his eight-year career at the next level.
Next, Watt’s legacy as a leading philanthropist is a great reason to select him. In 2010 while a student at UW-Madison, Watt formed the Justin J. Watt Foundation. The organization has been a success for nearly a decade, and in 2017, Watt’s altruistic nature helped raise \$41.6 million for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. This included \$100,000 personally donated by Watt himself.
According to the foundation’s release, the funds supported the rehabilitation of over homes, childcare centers, and schools. It also served tens of millions of survivors through providing meals, medicine, and physical/mental health services. That year, he was also named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year.
Watt also contributed \$10,000 to the late Sun Prairie firefighter Captain Cory Barr’s family, who tragically died during the Sun Prairie explosion last year.
I am going to admit something to you, dear B5Q reader: I began writing this post being rather critical of the Watt’s selection as the commencement speaker. While I have warmed up to the idea, I was initially turned off by a few aspects of his selection.
Upon learning of the announcement, I remembered that quarterback Russell Wilson was the 2016 commencement speaker, which means as of Sunday two of the last four speakers were former UW athletes (the other two speakers were David Muir in 2018 and Steven Levitan in 2017). The two athletes chosen to speak at commencement were Wisconsin football players. Even further, they both did not earn their undergraduate degree at UW. I worry about the implicit message this sends about the value of a UW-Madison degree and the value the university places on sports versus academics.
This is not to impeach Watt’s academic ability, academic achievement, or intelligence. You cannot be an Academic All-Big Ten honoree at Wisconsin for two seasons (2009 and 2010) without being a stellar student.
Next, since Watt is such a star and has such a unique career trajectory, I was unsure how he could relate to the common experiences of the class of 2019. Can he relate to graduates who do not care about sports? Can he relate to some of the issues our graduates may be facing, such as mounting student debt or economic fears?
Then there was the ESPN story by Sarah Barshop from mid-April that prompted me to explore this issue a bit, as Watt admitted he did not anticipate preparing a speech.
According to Barshop’s article, Watt was surprised that he was asked to send a copy of his speech ahead of time:
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’” Watt said. “‘I don’t write speeches. I’m just going to go up there and talk.’
”That was my full plan. I did not know that you had to write it all out. I’m dead serious. I didn’t know. He was like, ‘They have a teleprompter for you. What do you want on it?’
”I said, ‘Nothing. Just give me a black screen and tell me when to stop talking.’ That was literally my plan. But I found out you have to write some stuff down. So I have about a month to figure it out.”
I think in a positive way this cute story speaks to Watt’s confidence, and it speaks to the clash of culture that regales higher education. Conversely, I know for a fact that Watt would never head into an NFL game without fully preparing in practice an film study, so at first it struck me as a put-off that he was going to wing this speech. That said, the Barshop story indicated that Watt does take the address seriously, but that did not get as much media attention:
“I grew up 45 minutes from Camp Randall, so being invited to go back [and] have the opportunity to go back to a school and a team that I watched growing up and idolized, walked on and eventually got a scholarship from [and] now to be able to speak at their commencement, it’s an unbelievable honor. I take it very seriously. Even though I said I wasn’t going to write a speech, I take it very seriously. I’m humbled.”
While I think these critiques remain valid, they are rather insignificant compared to the high quality message Watt could deliver to the class of 2019. After reflecting on Watt’s journey more, I don’t care as much about whether or not he earned his degree. It’s a piece of paper, after all, what matters most is his growth and impact. Further, it sounds like there was some miscommunication that lead to Watt’s confusion over expectations; the Barshop interview no longer holds much grip over my opinion of the choice.
I believe Watt will deliver a meaningful address that communicates the Wisconsin Idea to our spring graduates and their loved ones. I also hope he takes some time to encourage graduates to continue to invest in themselves and live that Wisconsin Idea no matter what hand life deals them.
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