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John cappelletti’s heisman speech ranked as no. 10 greatest inspiring moment in college football history.

Penn State football legend John Cappelletti’s moving Heisman Trophy acceptance speech was ranked as the No. 10 greatest inspiring moment in college football history by ESPN.

ESPN is running a “#CFB150” series to commemorate the sport’s 150th anniversary. The series will include a number of countdown lists like this one throughout the 2019 season.

#CFB150 : The Greatest Inspiring Moments in College Football History Ranking at #10 – #PennState 's John Cappelletti makes a moving 1973 Heisman Speech. #WeAre pic.twitter.com/ZKEpFFZvWb — Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) September 27, 2019

John Cappelletti is the only player in Penn State football history to ever capture the Heisman Trophy as college football’s most outstanding player. He won the award in 1973 after posting 1,522 rushing yards and 17 scores in a season that the Nittany Lions finished undefeated. The 1973 season is one of 16 recognized among the greatest in program history on Beaver Stadium’s facade, and Cappelletti became the first and only Penn State football player to have his jersey number retired in 2013.

Although Cappelletti was dominant on the gridiron for Joe Paterno’s team, he was more well-known for the inspirational story surrounding that magical 1973 season.

The running back’s younger brother, Joey, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of three. Joey Cappelletti was one of the first patients to undergo chemotherapy as a cancer treatment, but he passed away due to his ailment at the age of 14 in 1976. During his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech, John held back tears as he talked about his little brother.

“If I can dedicate this trophy to him tonight and give him a couple days of happiness, this is worth everything,” Cappelletti said during his  speech . “I think a lot of people think that I go through a lot on Saturdays and during the week as most athletes do. You get your bumps and bruises, and it is a terrific battle out there on the field. Only for me, it is on Saturdays and it’s only in the fall.

“For Joseph, it is all year round, and it is a battle that is unending with him. He puts up with much more than I’ll ever put up with, and I think that this trophy is more his than mine because he has been a great inspiration to me.”

A straight-to-TV movie called “ Something For Joey ” was released in 1977, and it chronicled the bond between the two brothers during John’s football career at Penn State.

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About the Author

Mikey Mandarino

In the most upsetting turn of events, Mikey graduated from Penn State with a digital & print journalism degree in the spring of 2020. He covered Penn State football and served as an editor for Onward State from 2018 until his graduation. Mikey is from Bedminster, New Jersey, so naturally, he spends lots of time yelling about all the best things his home state has to offer. Mikey also loves to play golf, but he sucks at it because golf is really hard. If you, for some reason, feel compelled to see what Mikey has to say on the internet, follow him on Twitter @Mikey_Mandarino. You can also get in touch with Mikey via his big-boy email address: [email protected]

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Joe Burrow gives all-time great Heisman Trophy acceptance speech

Joe Burrow had an incredible season for the LSU Tigers that might have only been surpassed in quality by his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech.

Burrow on Saturday won the Heisman Trophy by a record margin. He received the highest percentage of first-place votes ever, the highest percentage of possible points, and the highest percentage of ballots named.

Joe Burrow won the Heisman Trophy in a landslide: -Second most total first-place votes (841) -Largest margin of victory (1,846 points) -Highest percentage of first-place votes (90.7%) -Highest percentage of possible points (93.8%) -Highest percentage of ballots named (95.5%) — Joey Kaufman (@joeyrkaufman) December 15, 2019

Much like his historic margin of Heisman victory, Burrow delivered a historic speech. He discussed his path, which included his time at Ohio State. He gave credit to his LSU teammates. He thanked Ed Orgeron. He recognized how privileged he is to excel coming from an area of Ohio that is impoverished.

Here is his entire speech — it’s well worth your time:

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The 50 Greatest Awards-Show Speeches of the Last 55 Years

The best acceptance moments make or break careers, cement fandoms, and spark blind items..

This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

The entire room was holding its collective breath when Olivia Colman beat odds-favorite Glenn Close to the Best Actress Oscar in 2019. Close had long been expected to win the season’s biggest prize for her performance in The Wife — a movie in which she plays the wife of all wives — having already taken home the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and other precursor awards. Colman also won a Golden Globe that year, for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy , for her part as the gouty, manipulated Queen Anne in The Favourite , and her tipsy speech (in which she thanked her “bitches” and extolled private jets) fortified what prognosticators already thought: Colman was funny, but Close was the serious winner. Until she wasn’t. In the face of such upset, what would Colman say?

Looking out onto a crowd she didn’t expect to face, Colman reached for the truth: to win, she said, is “ genuinely quite stressful ,” before admitting, through gasps and tears, it’s also “hilarious.” It’s an accurate two-part description of the general allure of awards shows, which can present moments both laughable and genuinely thrilling. We anticipate the Oscars and its kindred ceremonies for their red carpets and host monologues and cinematic montages and the times when Queen Latifah sings something, but we endure the hours-long award-show broadcasts for the psychic whiplash of acceptance speeches, when the polished Hollywood stars we admire are caught earnestly surprised, gracious, or moved to tears — or, just as captivating, when they perform surprise, gratitude, and deeply felt emotion and make it all seem genuine. Even the most choreographed of speeches embrace the power of pure spectacle, becoming windows into souls that are, at their core, either deeply beholden to the people who helped them along the way or deeply vengeful toward the people who didn’t help them along the way. Some of the best read like blind items forming live on our TV screens.

Back at the Oscars, Colman eventually composed herself and delivered a heartfelt and perfectly meandering ode to Close, Colman’s kids, her husband of 25 years, her agent, little girls practicing speeches in front of the telly, some people at Fox, Yorgos Lanthimos and her aforementioned “bitches” castmates, and, for no apparent reason other than she’s sitting in the front row of the audience, Lady Gaga — every appreciation customized for the subject and punctuated by genuine physical outbursts, as though her ecstatic brain was warring with her stunned body. It is a spectacle you can’t peel your eyes from that builds with tension until she blows a kiss to Ally Maine and relinquishes the stage to, as promised, snog anyone she forgot to acknowledge. Like any unforgettable speech giver, she managed to meet the high-stakes moment in which she found herself.

Watching as many acceptance speeches as we have as hosts of a podcast with the name “Oscar” in it , we’ve come to appreciate the specific qualities that separate the merely adequate awards-ceremony speeches (from nearly every male performer) from the truly special ones (from actresses, plus certain ornery old men and at least one rabble-rousing documentarian). The greatest acceptance speeches are enthusiastic like Colman’s without verging into inscrutability (sorry, Roberto Benigni ), though exceptions exist for speeches that are so low energy it’s the gag. They are quotable, with at least one defining line of speech, even if it’s the only line of speech (see Nos. 31 and 23 on this list). Sincerity in a speech is more important than the message; it’s why a baffling but believable reaction to winning an Oscar is cemented in our brains before the ones that are dutifully gracious or that perfunctorily advocate for something beyond the recipient’s own skills. (Although everyone loves a scorched-earth speech — see No. 14 on this list). And, of course, the prestige level of the award show itself matters; a memorable speech at the Oscars can outrank one of the same caliber at the Globes, because the pins-and-needles suspense at the pinnacle of awards season only ups the ante of the viewing experience. At the same time, a precursor speech of lower standing can tip the scales of an Oscar campaign, and we recognized those too. (In the interest of variety, we also only considered one speech per actor per awards cycle; sorry, Colman’s breathy “hi” at the Globes, but her breathy “hi” at the Oscars was better.)

This year, an already dense awards season will see the Emmys wedged in between the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards, so what better time to revisit unforgettable awards-season moments by acknowledging the 50 speeches of the last 55 years? (To be eligible for this list, speeches needed to be archived somewhere online, and the earliest recording here dates back to 1969.) While the Grammys will also be broadcast next month, we’re keeping this ranking to screen and stage awards (the MTV movie awards qualify, but the VMAs do not), where the art of the acceptance speech has been perfected by stars who make a living performing dialogue and the filmmakers and craftspeople who make them look good doing it. (Speeches by below-the-line artists were eligible for this list, but our final 50 ended up favoring the performers of Hollywood.) And remember, this ranking is about speeches , not bits. Winona Ryder mugging behind David Harbour’s SAG Ensemble speech for Stranger Things ? Good meme, beautiful meme, but you won’t see Harbour’s acceptance moment celebrated here.

50. Patti LuPone, 62nd Tony Awards (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Gypsy

The Tony Awards are where we’re most reliably reminded that “Stars, they are not like us. Its recipients are accustomed to not only the spotlight but commanding a theater of people eight times a week. Take, for example, Patti LuPone, who in 2008 won the second of her three Tonys as Mama Rose in a revival of Gypsy . It was her first win in nearly three decades, despite boasting one of the most revered careers in the American theater. With a sense of glory and triumph usually reserved for horn sections, LuPone amended a prepared speech from a previous loss (hilarious!) and trilled through an inventory of thank-yous that spanned multiple theater companies and professionals, up to and including the ghosts of the St. James Theatre. But as one of Broadway’s grand dames, naturally she still comes off as earnest and heartfelt doing it. When the orchestra begins to play over her speech (we’ll have more of those, just wait), she’s affable to it at first, but then she erupts like an ocean squall full of pent-up Tony losses and earned litigiousness toward Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Shut up! It’s been 29 years!”

49. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, 70th Academy Awards (1998)

Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Good Will Hunting

Speaking of yelling: Sometimes when you win an award, the Boston jumps out. The otherwise prim quality of an awards ceremony can favor a speech where the winner’s enthusiasm and wide-eyed disbelief are at full volume. Here, Affleck and Damon maintain the composure expected in a ceremony like the Oscars (Affleck even says the words “We’re fortunate enough to be involved with a lot of great people upon whom it’s incumbent upon us to thank”) … before basically ending their speech doing keg stands. Like a pair of brothers with a fancy new toy, their thank-yous get louder, more tangled, more manic. Producers are great! Moms are beautiful! Their hometown is everything! Affleck’s voice eventually cracks and the effusion comes to a halt. They really were just two young guys!

48. Ving Rhames, 55th Golden Globe Awards (1998)

Best Actor — Miniseries or Television Film, Don King: Only in America

Over the years, the Golden Globes has earned a reputation for being the awards show where all the craziest shit happens. And that reputation was probably formed around the time Ving Rhames tried to give his best actor trophy to Jack Lemmon. The entire moment is a generosity battle between two unyielding mensches. First of all, Rhames is endearingly formal in asking “Mr. Jack Lemmon” to emerge from the crowd and take the stage. Lemmon is in a daze as he takes the long route to the stage. Rhames tells Lemmon he’s not going to give him the Globe — so as not to scare him off, then gives Lemmon the award as soon as he arrives at the mic. At this point, Lemmon’s basically playing one of his everyman characters, trying to figure out in real time whether the right thing to do is hand the award back or accept Rhames’s gesture in the spirit in which it was intended. Meanwhile, in the audience, Goldie Hawn is in tears, Jodie Foster is laughing her ass off, and Jack Nicholson is cheekily suggesting Lemmon pass the award to him next. Despite the “you take it, no you take it” tug-of-war that nearly ends with the statue getting dropped, both Rhames and Lemmon ultimately combine for an incredible tandem speech. Rhames brings emotion (the tears come quickly and don’t stop) and the elegance (a Stanislavsky quote). You get the sense that only someone as emotionally open as Rhames would have ever made the gesture, and only someone as seasoned as Lemmon could have rolled with the punch.

47. Susan Lucci, 26th Daytime Emmy Awards (1999)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, All My Children

The occasion of Susan Lucci finally winning a Daytime Emmy after 18 previous nominations failed to result in a statue would have been enough to enshrine this moment in awards-show history. But Lucci went on to deliver a speech worthy of soap opera history, too. After lapping up the absolute pandemonium of the crowd (Rosie O’Donnell weeping; Oprah Winfrey hollering from the wings of the stage) for nearly 90 seconds, smiling, gasping, squealing, and bursting with “I can’t believe it’s,” Lucci eventually thanks the audience, her husband and kids, and the team at All My Children . But she gets into an oratory groove when she mentions that she was originally seen by casting directors as merely an “ethnic type,” only good enough to appear every other Tuesday. Lucci then points to Agnes Nixon, the great matriarch of daytime drama, for “changing the face of our medium” — placing her own struggle for legitimacy in the historical context of soaps’ perpetual uphill climb for industry respect. And she’s right to do so — Lucci’s quest for a long-awaited Daytime Emmy helped legitimize the awards by giving them a level of intrigue every year. And by the end of the speech, she might as well be standing in the middle of Pine Valley’s town square. She’s fully slipped into Erica Kane’s version of magnanimity, standing proudly beneath the stage lights, promising her legions of fans that she’ll be back at work with them on Monday.

46. Lin-Manuel Miranda, 62nd Tony Awards (2008)

Best Original Score, In the Heights

On any list of polarizing figures and acquired tastes in musical theater, there is Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose style of rapping has become as omnipresent at the Tonys as the phrase “the Shubert organization.” It’s easy to find his energy infectious, this fresh young face taking Broadway by storm, the look of awe still there on said face. You could, at the same time, find his schtick cringey, the Wesleyan try-hard pirouetting out as he nods to Thomas Kail “for keepin’ the engine burnin’, for being so discernin’.” But there’s an undeniable energy to his first Tony win as he tremulously freestyled his thank-yous, crescendoing with shout-outs to Stephen Sondheim and Puerto Rico. You need only look at the ensuing years of Tony Awards full of Neil Patrick Harris spitting L.M.M.-penned rhymes at the end of the show to see how this speech resonated.

45. Patty Duke, 22nd Primetime Emmy Awards (1970)

Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, My Sweet Charlie

There’s nothing like watching a celebrated performer suck the inflated pomp and circumstance out of a room with their sheer magnetic intensity. Patty Duke does so by taking the stage and making the audience soak in her silence — something you’ll almost never hear during an awards ceremony! Soon after she arrives at the mic, she raises a flattened hand to her brow to wordlessly investigate the audience only to utter the words, “You, Mom. Happy birthday.” (No exclamation point.) The dead air she inserts on either side of an eventual word — “enthusiasm” — turns her minimalist intensity into a fine art. And even as it dips into the slightly bizarre, she never loses our attention.

44. Rue McClanahan, 39th Primetime Emmy Awards (1987)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, The Golden Girls

When Ben Affleck won Best Picture for Argo , he said to endure in Hollywood as he had, you can’t hold grudges. But he said it in a way that sounded like he’d very much been holding onto some real grudges. He’d have been better off accepting his Oscar by showing a video of Rue McClanahan’s speech from 1987. After winning for her role on The Golden Girls , McClanahan recalled her mother’s advice that “Every kick’s a boost.” And to the ones who gave her kicks along the way, Rue — eyes darting and narrowing in a genuinely intimidating rhythm, fingers massaging her rings, that Southern voice purring as was her signature sound onscreen — assured them they’d be “in the book.”

43. James Cameron, 70th Academy Awards (1998)

Best Director, Titanic

This is a list of the greatest speeches, though not necessarily the most innately likable ones. James Cameron’s brand of cheerful self-regard, which he carried with him throughout Titanic ’s full-steam-ahead push in the 1997 awards season, wasn’t always the most endearing. But when he capped off his best director win by earnestly quoting his own character, Jack Dawson, with an “I’m the king of the world!” — his howls echoing through the Shrine Auditorium — he was the triumphant auteur incarnate. Sure, he sounded like he was shoving it in the face of all the other movies that got steamrolled by Titanic that year, but if you can’t feel on top of the world when you’re winning an Oscar, when can you?

42. Sharon Stone, 53rd Golden Globe Awards (1996)

Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama, Casino

For as much as Sharon Stone got kicked around Hollywood, with everyone from critics to comedians acting like she was some kind of bad actress after Basic Instinct , she’d be forgiven for thinking it a miracle that she’d get this award over the likes of Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, and the eventual Oscar winner in her category that year, Susan Sarandon. Stone’s speech makes the list for two reasons: first, the pitch-perfect comic timing when Stone, fumbling for how to begin this unlikely acceptance, finally fixes her eyes on the audience and deadpans, “Okay, it’s a miracle.” And the unvarnished yet still appreciative way she thanks people like Martin Scorsese who made “room for the breadth and annoying moments of my uncontrollable passion.” We love candid self-awareness.

41. Steven Soderbergh, 73rd Academy Awards (2001)

Best Director, Traffic

In recent years, as Oscar telecast producers have gotten more stringent about limiting their broadcast’s runtimes, they have used the occasion of the nominees’ luncheon to screen Soderbergh’s 2001 acceptance as an ideal speech. It’s brief (under a minute), it says something meaningful about art, and thanks anybody out there “who spends part of their day creating.” Most importantly, it eschews the laundry list of names that ceremony producers just cannot stand. In general, this ranking endeavors to celebrate exactly the kind of speeches that Oscars producers say they don’t want, but we have to admit, Soderbergh is quite eloquent in his brevity. Here’s to those who create!

40. Marion Cotillard, 80th Academy Awards (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, La Vie en Rose

Quick, say “Thank you, love; thank you, life” to the first person you find in an unironic beret and they will surely tell you that it’s true there are some angels in this city. At the 80th Academy Awards ceremony, a then new-to-English and new er -to-awards Cotillard brims with the gratitude and possibility of a child witnessing their first snowfall. You can’t blame her zeal — her performance as Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose was the first performance in the French language to win a best actress statue, and no one could have predicted her win even after smaller roles in a few American movies. Cotillard was running neck-and-neck with Julie Christie for the win, and clearly Cotillard was taken by surprise to be declared the victor. The triumph blends the best of two awards-speech worlds: profound honesty and accidental quotability. “You rocked my life!”

39. Taraji P. Henson, 23rd Screen Actors Guild Awards (2017)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Hidden Figures

Speeches can achieve greatness for their level of contagious pep, or for the recipient’s simple talent for speaking, and Taraji P. Henson’s acceptance on behalf of her Hidden Figures cast is an example of both. But what it most resoundingly delivers is something that many speeches aim for and miss: a galvanizing message at exactly the moment we need to hear it. Succinctly speaking to the film’s real-life subjects as inspirational figures for finding solutions in times of infinite problems, Henson gave a response to the 2016 electoral elephant in the room without even having to invoke him by name. “This story is about unity, this story is about what happens when we put our differences aside and we come together as a human race.” SAG Ensemble prizes are often love fests, but Henson seized the moment and it was anything but an accident.

38. Tiffany Haddish, 84th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, 2018

Best Supporting Actress, Girls Trip

By the miracle of Vulture’s own Alison Willmore, there exists video evidence of Tiffany Haddish’s incredible 17-minute acceptance speech. Which means we’re clear to include this NYFCC award on our list. Haddish openly flirts with Michael B. Jordan; chats at length about the giant many-armed goddess statue at the ceremony’s venue, TAO; gives a line reading from Girls Trip that Universal demanded be cut; and wonders why critics don’t have another TV show like Siskel and Ebert did. It is a marathon, not a sprint, and Haddish held court the entire time, displaying her star power as sure as any onscreen performance could. Speeches like this one (and the annual Governor Awards that celebrate lifetime achievement in the film industry) don’t put time constraints on recipients, and are a reminder that if the speaker is captivating enough, we’ll watch them for as long as they want to keep speaking. And if they speak long enough, they might make a joke about wearing “God’s panties,” and that’s when it gets really special.

37. James Hong, 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards (2023)

Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Film, Everything Everywhere All at Once 

The great thing about SAG’s ensemble award is that it allows some of the cast members who haven’t been singled out for individual awards to get their moment in the spotlight. That was never better than when 94-year-old James Hong accepted on behalf of his Everything Everywhere All at Once cast in 2023. Hong began by speaking Cantonese “in case they broadcast us in Hong Kong,” then pulled some classic grandpa “I remember my first movie was with Clark Gable” business. But Hong followed that up with a harsh reminder of Hollywood’s racist past, when Asian characters were played by white men with slanted-eye makeup. Hong’s rebuke was a welcome dash of vinegar to keep Hollywood from being too self-congratulatory over finally awarding Asian actors like Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.

36. Rita Moreno, 29th Tony Awards (1975)

Best Featured Actress in a Play, The Ritz

Not only did Moreno practically samba her way onto the stage to accept her Tony Award in a stunning fashion turban, but she did so with bracing honesty. “I’m the leading lady of The Ritz , I am not a supporting actress,” she said about her performance as heavily accented bathhouse performer Googie Gomez in Terrence McNally’s pre-AIDS sex farce. It was a not-so-subtle jab at the powers that be for putting her into a lesser category. Good natured as always, Moreno points out, as Ms. Gomez might have said: “Listen, honey, the only thing I support in that show is my beads!”

35. Tilda Swinton, 80th Academy Awards (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Michael Clayton

Tilda Swinton is a one-of-a-kind performer, and so she also delivered a one-of-a-kind acceptance speech. By that I mean, one curiously obsessed with anatomy. She kicks off her speech (clearly flummoxed, but in a totally chill Tilda Swinton way) by saying she’ll give the trophy to its doppelgänger, her agent, who looks like it in all physical attributes including, “It has to be said, the buttocks.” Then, when thanking her Michael Clayton collaborators, she calls out George Clooney’s Batman nipples as the inspiration that they are. You could give the art-world-borne Swinton points for being the most high-toned person in the room, but she wasn’t above this . Typically steelish and composed when speaking publicly, it’s oddly affecting to see Swinton with her guard down.

34. Denzel Washington, 74th Academy Awards (2002)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Training Day

We’re going to say it a lot on this list, but so much of what goes into a great speech is a sense of occasion: delivering the right speech, with the right tone, at the right time, with the spotlight on you. Denzel Washington knew that Sidney Poitier would be in the audience when he accepted his Oscar. Poitier was an icon to Washtinton and to that date was the only Black performer to win an Oscar for a leading role. Both Washington and Halle Berry would join those ranks in 2002, and Washington used his speech to build a bridge from Poitier’s groundbreaking career to his own, and in doing so, helped to crystallize one of that night’s most historic narratives. “I’ll always be chasing you, Sidney,” Washington said, beaming. “I’ll always be following in your footsteps, sir. There’s nothing I would rather do.”

33. Ruth Gordon, 41st Academy Awards (1969)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Rosemary’s Baby

One interesting element of speech writing is finding your own unique way of stating “thank you” without using those two words. Ruth Gordon, after years in the business, opened with this phrasing: “I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is!” An Oscar, she hints, is simply the nicest pat on the back to emerging talent like her. The riotous laughter and applause she garnered is proof the succinct bit landed perfectly.

32. Ingrid Bergman, 47th Academy Awards (1975)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Murder on the Orient Express

“It’s always very nice to get an Oscar” is the neatest way to begin any awards speech. In fact, it should be mandatory for all repeat winners, like an AMPAS pledge of allegiance. (See also: costume designer Sandy Powell’s “I’ve already got two of these.”) But third time winner and screen legend Ingrid Bergman’s acceptance for Murder on the Orient Express is even more wonderful for how she spends the rest of the speech either celebrating fellow nominee Valentina Cortese or lamenting how she doesn’t quite understand how Oscars rules work for international films.

31. Joe Pesci, 63rd Academy Awards (1991)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Goodfellas

Sometimes, the brevity of an acceptance speech can be read as shade (take, for example, Alfred Hitchcock accepting his honorary Oscar with a curt “Thank you” and a quick exit) or a symptom of confusion (hello, Gloria Grahame ). But the famously press-shy Pesci’s version of the simple hat tip was the gentleman’s version: “It was my privilege.” It was poetry that acknowledged his appreciation of his industry and his peers without skimping on the showmanship. Brief but full-bodied, like a shot of bourbon.

30. Sutton Foster, 65th Tony Awards (2011)

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Anything Goes

Please give Sutton Foster another Tony so that she can give us an update on her former dresser Julien Havard who was leaving her next week (which was a great thing!!) to pursue his dream as an artist on Cape Cod.

29. Robin Williams, Eighth Critics’ Choice Awards (2003)

Best Actor, One Hour Photo

How does a loser give the most memorable speech of an awards ceremony? He just has to be Robin Williams. In the early days of the Critics’ Choice Awards, categories only held three nominees. When a tie occurred between Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt and Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York , rascal extraordinaire Nicholson called the unawarded Williams (for One Hour Photo ) to the stage. Williams then gave a speech to cheers that thanked the Irish people, mocked the ceremony’s set design, referenced Buddhism, and called Jack so thrilled “He could drop a log.” It’s so wild that it manages to make Day-Lewis seem painfully square, Nicholson seem so disarmed as to shed his trademark awards-show sunglasses, and presenter Salma Hayek seem like the only person in Hollywood able to corral them all.

28. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 65th Primetime Emmy Awards (2013)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, Veep

Comedy bits as acceptance speeches can work, but the risk-reward ratio is daunting. For when they fail, they fail miserably. The secret sauce is commitment, which Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale possessed in spades when they opted to accept Louis-Dreyfus’s award in character, with Hale playing his Veep flunky. They didn’t cheat or giggle or give any indication that the ceremony was taking place in anything but some weird in-between space where reality and Veep have converged for the length of this one acceptance speech. As the series went on, that convergence felt permanent.

27. Jack Nicholson, 56th Golden Globe Awards (1999)

Cecil B. DeMille Award

Just a year prior to receiving his lifetime achievement award, Nicholson had taken the stage to accept an award for As Good As It Gets and paid tribute to his co-nominee Jim Carrey by literally talking out of his butt , Ace Ventura –style. The 1999 version of Nicholson was more demure, but only by a degree. At the 1999 Golden Globes ceremony, Nicholson reminisced on the good old days before the awards were televised, when Joan Crawford grabbed her own breasts onstage (“In my day, we had ’em”) and Rita Hayworth flipped her dress up over her head. It’s Jack in prime “life of the party” form, regaling you with tales like we were all courtside at a Lakers game. He takes some friendly shots at presenter and pal Warren Beatty, too, and delivers one perfectly executed joke about his agent (“… His name escapes me”). ) This is old-school Hollywood at its finest, and most unfiltered. And in feeling free to tell his ribald tales, Nicholson manages to be his most sincere. Even his acknowledgement of his advancing years is met with a joke (the “fear of the shroud”) and a reminder to the room that he’s still ready to work.

26. Renée Zellweger, 92nd Academy Awards (2020)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Judy

Renée Zellweger’s second Oscars speech gloriously derailed, transforming from a well-meaning listing-off of her heroes to a communication from a fugue state. Neil Armstrong gives way to Dolores Huerta and Venus, Serena, and Selena. Bob Dylan! India, disillusionment, silence. The dreams we used to say, the house we spent away. Ever the class act, Zellweger finds her point again, making the whole thing positively Garlandian.

25. Fred Rogers, 24th Daytime Emmy Awards (1997)

Lifetime Achievement Award

What makes a tear-jerker speech worthy of accolades? Given the preponderance of award recipients who thank their spouses and children and parents and mentors, it’s not exactly difficult to find an acceptance moment that tugs at wholesome heartstrings. But there’s low-hanging sentiment and then there’s Mr. Rogers. His call for ten seconds of silence “To think of the people who helped you become the people you are” was a classic Fred Rogers gambit. And wouldn’t you know, he had Linda Dano weeping in the crowd.

24. Jane Fonda, 44th Academy Awards (1972)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Klute

Fonda was no stranger to memorable awards-show stage appearances, whether she was signing in ASL for her second Oscar win for Coming Home or standing proud with a Mount Everest of hair as she accepted on behalf of her ailing father, Henry Fonda, for his On Golden Pond performance. But the most striking speech is the one she made after her first win for Klute , loaded in its simplicity — and therefore deeply quotable. This was months before her controversial visit to Hanoi, but she was already well-established as an antiwar activist, much to Hollywood’s discomfort. But instead of using her time at the mic to speak specifically to the activism she cared about, she let these words linger in the room instead: “There is a great deal to say and I’m not going to say it tonight.” There would continue to be a great deal to say, to say the least.

23. Merritt Wever, 65th Primetime Emmy Awards (2013)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Nurse Jackie

The single greatest quick speech of all time came from a shock Emmy win for underdog contender Merritt Wever, facing stiff competition and clearly unprepared for victory. Whether Wever genuinely did not want to be in the situation or was simply yes-anding the surprise of her own win to comedic effect, her “I gotta go, bye” will absolutely go down in awards-ceremony history.

22. Meryl Streep, 74th Golden Globe Awards (2017)

Donald Trump’s election was a fresh wound when Meryl Streep, hoarse from protesting, took the stage to accept her lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Streep took the occasion to blast the president — without ever uttering his name — for the cruelty of his politics, as well as his recently instituted travel ban on people from Muslim-majority countries. Streep took a tour of the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton and cited the birthplaces of everyone from Viola Davis to Ryan Gosling to Dev Patel — “outsiders and immigrants” partially responsible for the stories being celebrated that night. Sure, it wasn’t hard to whip up the spirits of a sympathetic room, but her staunch defense of compassion and multiculturalism gave focus and clarity to Hollywood’s anti-Trump movement — she’d be nominated a year later for the politically timely The Post — and earned her a place on the then-president’s shit list.

21. Ally Sheedy, 14th Independent Spirit Awards (1999)

Best Actress, High Art

“OHHH MYYY GODDDDD!” was how Ally Sheedy began her acceptance speech, after literally crawling up onto the stage and locking best pal and presenter Rosanna Arquette into an unbreakable embrace. Sheedy, an icon of ’80s movies like The Breakfast Club but largely forgotten by the time she starred in Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 lesbian drama, High Art , physically demonstrated just how impossible it felt to claw her way back to industry recognition. And whatever emotional or chemical state she was in at the time, she was not going to relinquish that spotlight. Sheedy spoke, hollered, laughed, and cried for ten full minutes, highlighting the Spirits’ anti-Oscars vibe while at the same time guaranteeing this career resurgence of hers would live on in some way.

20. Kirstie Alley, 43rd Primetime Emmy Awards (1991)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Cheers

To say that Kirstie Alley was a peculiar personality in her prime is probably putting it lightly. Her acceptance speech when she won the Emmy on her third try as Cheers ’ leading lady was an exercise in resisting sincerity and schmaltziness. So she poked fun at co-star Ted Danson’s famous Emmy drought and made a joke about the dry cleaner finding her old unused acceptance speeches in her dress pockets. But she put a bow on her stand-up when she thanked her then-husband, Parker Stevenson, “For giving me the big one for the last eight years.” Cheers to that .

19. Mo’Nique, 82nd Academy Awards (2010)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Precious

Throughout Mo’Nique’s Oscars season in 2009–2010, she faced unfair criticisms from the press and bloggersphere for her reticence to participate in the Hollywood baby-kissing tour that is an Academy Awards campaign, even as she obtained frontrunner status. Mo’Nique gave very limited interviews, and appeared at few “for your consideration,” events but was also busy launching her talk show at that time. So when the multi-hyphenate performer took the stage and thanked the Academy for awarding “the performance and not the politics,” the more casual Oscar watchers at home might have been confused as to what she meant. But it was a gratifying crack to the system that Mo’Nique could achieve what many of them could not.

18. Geena Davis, 63rd Golden Globe Awards (2006)

Best Actress in a Television Series — Drama, Commander in Chief

Geena Davis delivered the ultrarare postmodern acceptance speech when she won the Globe for playing the [gasp] female president of the United States on Commander in Chief . Adopting some of the more treacly clichés of the acceptance-speech artform, Davis began to tell a story about a little girl out on the red carpet who tugged on her dress and told her, “Because of you, I want to be president.” And then Davis yanked the rug right out from under the audience, weaponizing their “ awwws ” against them by revealing the story to be a complete lie. Besides showing the Globes audience as a bunch of credulous saps, Davis also delivered a subtle message: Keep giving me awards and I’ll keep being this funny.

17. Elaine Stritch, 56th Primetime Emmy Awards (2004)

Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program, Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Leave it to another Broadway legend to perform the hell out of a Hollywood acceptance speech. Elaine Stritch won the Emmy for the HBO filmed version of her stage show, then proceeded to stage an epic siege of the podium. Stritch referenced her drinking problem, got bleeped, nearly got HBO exec Chris Albrecht’s name wrong, and then declared she’d just start naming names until someone dragged her off the stage. Was the speech genuinely unhinged? Did it matter? By the time Stritch was shouting out Scott Saunders (“I don’t like him very much, but he got us the money!”) and flirting with an F-bomb, she’d very nearly earned herself a second Emmy for the speech itself.

16. Jack Palance, 64th Academy Awards (1992)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, City Slickers

It took nearly 40 years from Jack Palance’s first brush with Oscar — he was nominated back to back for 1952’s Sudden Fear and 1953’s Shane — for him to finally get the prize, and by the time he took the stage to accept his award from Whoopi Goldberg, the old man was full of beans. Casting a glance downstage to that year’s host, his City Slickers co-star Billy Crystal, Palance quoted his character, Curly, by sneering, “I crap bigger than him.” He followed that with some words about how Hollywood producers won’t always cast old veterans for parts that require any physicality, before dropping to the stage and performing a series of one-armed push-ups, to the delight of the audience — not to mention Crystal, who spent the rest of the evening riffing off of Palance’s surprising show of vitality.

15. Michelle Williams, 71st Primetime Emmy Awards (2019)

Best Lead Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie, Fosse/Verdon

Two years before she took on the role of Gwen Verdon, Michelle Williams found herself inadvertently at the center of one of the great dust-ups of the new Me Too era when it came out that she had been paid a fraction of what her All the Money in the World counterpart, Mark Wahlberg, had been paid for the job. Two years later, when accepting her Emmy, Williams put a button on that moment, thanking her bosses at FX for listening to her needs for more vocal training, dance lessons, better fake teeth and wigs (essential!), and for paying her equally. “They understood that when you put value in a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value, and where do they put that value? They put it into their work.” Williams made an extra-pointed statement for women of color in this regard, making the speech a home run for advocacy — and succinctness (the entire speech fell under two minutes).

14. Sacheen Littlefeather for Marlon Brando, 45th Academy Awards (1973)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, The Godfather

The massive success of The Godfather was a victory lap for Marlon Brando, overturning a decade’s worth of film failures overnight and making him the obvious best actor winner for his performance as Don Corleone. But Brando boycotted the ceremony to speak out against the ongoing mistreatment and misrepresentation of Native Americans in Hollywood films amid the ongoing occupation of Wounded Knee. In his place, Brando sent Native American actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather to read a prepared statement (which was forcibly reduced onscreen by Oscars producers). Littlefeather received a torrent of boos in the theater and was harassed by industry members backstage before reading the entire speech for the press backstage. Brando was criticized not only for using the Oscars as a political platform but also for forcing Littlefeather to face the heat from the industry. Months before she passed away in 2022, the Academy issued Littlefeather a formal apology.

13. Sheryl Lee Ralph, 28th Critics’ Choice Awards (2023)

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Abbott Elementary

So many speeches, even great ones, play to the room rather than the audience watching at home. Not I, said the great Sheryl Lee Ralph, who after speaking of the hardships in her career, knew exactly where her camera was and pointed straight to it with the righteous self-conviction of a trash-talking WWE champion. But instead of bringing the pain, she brought a new pinnacle of the uplifting awards speech. Making eye contact with our souls as the camera operator zoomed in, she spoke of the importance of self-love (which can sound phony coming out of most Hollywood mouths) over any other form of respect, making even the most wavering self-doubter into a believer in only the way a truly self-actualized person can.

12. Jim Carrey, MTV Movie Awards (1999)

Best Male Performance, The Truman Show

It’s important to situate this one on the grand Jim Carrey timeline, as it came mere months after he was snubbed for an Academy Award and shortly after he filmed the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon . Perhaps taking Kaufman’s cue, Carrey accepted his tub of golden popcorn deep in character as a Jim Morrison–esque free-loving biker burnout. To the delight of several A-listers in the crowd (his co-star Courtney Love but also Keri Russell and Salma Hayek), Carrey leeringly noted that there was “Some fine-looking pussy in the room tonight,” thus checking the “quotable” box on our scorecard and bringing the performance of sincerity to a whole other stratosphere.

11. Cuba Gooding Jr., 69th Academy Awards (1997)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Jerry Maguire

In any awards show — but especially at the Oscars, it seems — there is an unspoken battle between the producers and the awards recipients. The producers have their eye on the clock, not wanting to let the ceremony drift toward an unwieldy runtime. They also know that a rambly, unfocused speech isn’t great television, and they tend to hustle those off the stage with a premature cue of the orchestra. This battle can be uncomfortable to watch play out. An overzealous orchestra can give the unwelcome impression that we’re all just trying to get this over with as soon as possible. But when Cuba Gooding Jr. accepted his Oscar for Jerry Maguire and seemed momentarily dazed by the enormity of the moment, the orchestra’s intrusion kind of hip-checked Gooding into action. Suddenly fighting back against the music, Gooding’s thank-yous got louder, his gratitude got more exuberant — he was about 30 seconds away from levitating off the stage. It’s one of the most pure expressions of joy ever seen at the Oscars, and it’s even better when you watch the view from the production booth .

10. Tom Hanks, 66th Academy Awards (1994)

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Philadelphia

It’s fair to criticize the history of straight actors being rewarded for playing gay characters, and Hanks was quick to acknowledge the unfairness of his position when awarded an Oscar for playing Andy Beckett in Philadelphia . The lasting impression of his speech is its impassioned plea for acceptance of gay people during a hostile time, one that rings more honestly felt than the talking points later male-acting winners would mimic. Hanks chokes up early and stays that way throughout, giving one of his first steps as everyone’s movie dad and a quintessential message speech so articulate you might overlook its religious overtones. Hanks also recognizes the impact of two gay fellow creatives on his life, a fellow actor and his high-school drama teacher, a statement that would be satirized a few years later in In and Out — bet you can’t name another acceptance speech that inspired a whole movie!

9. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, MTV Movie Awards (2005)

Best Kiss, The Notebook

The MTV Movie Awards’ Best Kiss category has a checkered past, displaying mild-to-medium homophobia some years and engendering over-the-top eye rolls other years. But it’s an interesting subset of Hollywood awards in that it has, in retrospect, recognized some of our greatest performers (from Moonlight actors to Twilight actors). So how, in accepting such an award, do you express the gratitude indicative of a future star while also recognizing the frivolity of the whole affair? If you’re complete geniuses like Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, you re-create the whole lift-kiss thing from The Notebook onstage while perfectly mid-aughts sex-groove Maroon 5 plays in the background. And one of you has a Darfur T-shirt on. The then-still-dating stars milked the moment for all it was worth, demonstrating a level of confidence and showmanship you would expect from seasoned stars, not two breakthroughs, as well as a savvy understanding of the fact that the MTV Movie Awards exist for fan service and not much else. While McAdams hasn’t had many opportunities to accept awards thereafter (fix it, Academy cowards!), this speech set the tone for Gosling’s later mischief-maker persona, someone who refuses to take any awards ceremony too seriously.

8. Michael Moore (with Michael Donovan), 75th Academy Awards (2003)

Best Documentary Feature, Bowling for Columbine

Even with Moore’s reputation for political pot-stirring, the filmmaker was entering Oscars night as something of a success story, riding high on the praise for Bowling for Columbine that made him among the surest bets to win that night. But this ceremony was also three days after the U.S. invaded Iraq. Taking the stage for his documentary feature win with his fellow nominees, the audience gave him a standing ovation (how often does that happen for docs?!) and chaos ensued. Moore called out the Bush administration, remarking, “We live in fictitious times [with] fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president … sending us to war for fictitious reasons.” Instantly throughout the theater a cloud of boos descends, with scattered agreeable applause, and the voice of fear visibly ringing in the head of every star on camera not to show their true feelings (catch Scorsese beginning to clap, though! Harrison Ford, living for the chaos!). It would make Moore a household name in America and serve as table setting for his next film, Fahrenheit 9/11 , the highest-grossing documentary to that point.

7. Olivia Colman, 91st Academy Awards (2019)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, The Favourite

Colman’s win takes us on a breakneck guided tour of the best categories of awards speeches, arriving at each new fence post with a swiftness envied by most high-speed rail systems: the wildly funny type, the directed-to-the-daydreamers-at-home motivational type, the sobbing type, the effusively aware-of-her-fellow-nominees type. It is arguably the most quotable acceptance speech of recent years, from the anxious opener, “It’s genuinely quite stressful,” to her smooching “LADY GAGA!!” finish. But the speech category that ties them all together is one more typically found at the Golden Globes: the drunk type (later, Colman admitted that expecting not to win, she’d gotten knackered). Every great speech should offer a lingering question (in this case, who earned Colman’s early tears of “Hi”?). And if they must be scattered, they should be gloriously and hilariously so, and cement what makes the recipient a deeply lovable and emotionally activated comedic actress [ blows raspberry ].

6. Halle Berry, 74th Academy Awards (2002)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Monster’s Ball

Halle Berry’s Oscar for Monster’s Ball was the first best-actress win for a Black woman, carrying with it the weight of not only the past but the present of an industry that hadn’t advanced as much as it liked to tell itself it had. And Berry managed to meet that moment with the feeling in her speech. Berry’s emotional outpouring is still impossible not to be moved by on rewatch, and it (along with Denzel’s speech) remains the gold standard for how to recognize the performers that paved the road before you. Crucially, her speech mentions not only former Oscar nominees like Dorothy Dandridge and Diahann Carroll but also her contemporaries who hadn’t been given the chance at an Oscar because of Hollywood’s continual denial of opportunities for Black actresses.

5. Sally Field, 57th Academy Awards (1985)

Best Performance by a Leading Actress, Places in the Heart

Sally Field got so much shit for this, you guys. Expressing how her second win felt like acceptance into an industry — that had once pigeonholed and discarded her as Gidget and the Flying Nun — in a way that her first had not, this speech was a moment of vulnerable “you like me!” earnestness that instead turned her into the butt of the joke. Forgive me for tsk-tsking the culture at large from half a century ago, but there was no mention at the time in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rulebook that a second-time Oscar winner must be self-effacing, and there has yet to be any to this day.

4. Viola Davis, 89th Academy Awards (2017)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Fences

A rousing speech can floor us in a single quote, as Viola Davis did: “There’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered … that’s the graveyard.” Hers is the delivery of a master speechwriter, piecing together the kind of personal and professional gratitudes that usually get doled out in an acceptance speech, and molding them into a moving proclamation as much about the artist’s calling as it is about how you choose to live a life. Too many speeches, even by the most charismatic stars, are bullet-pointed names of people we know nothing about, but Davis’s speech makes them feel like real humans begging to be known. Lesser stars can be clunkier when trying to pull into their speeches the themes of the film for which they won, but Davis shows Fences and the work of August Wilson as intrinsic to who she is as an actress and a person who makes this one hell of an artist’s statement.

3. Shirley MacLaine, 56th Academy Awards (1984)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Terms of Endearment

Humility is a great virtue, provided it comes naturally. But if that’s not what you’re feeling, sing out , Louise! Shirley MacLaine ended her Oscar speech with a hurried “I deserve this,” which was partly comical and partly sincere — MacLaine owning her pride at achieving a career pinnacle in Terms of Endearment , into which she put so much of her creativity and hard work. But before the sincere part, MacLaine took a good-natured dig at the length of the ceremony, poked fun at her own recently earned reputation for transcendentalism, thanked Jack Nicholson for the “middle-aged joy” of having him in bed in the film, and thanked her co-nominated co-star, Debra Winger, for her “turbulent brilliance.” MacLaine and Winger famously feuded on the set of the film, and Winger’s bemused (yet smiling!) reaction seemed to hide something muttered under her breath. We’ll say it again, there’s nothing like an Oscar speech that produces a blind item.

2. Julia Roberts, 73rd Academy Awards (2001)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Erin Brockovich

You think you know the moment when Julia Roberts’s Oscar speech becomes the second greatest of all time. Certainly, it was when she unhinged her jaw and let out that irrepressible, whooping cackle, ending with an “I love it up here!” Or wait, perhaps it was a smidge earlier when she admonished orchestra conductor Bill Conti (“Stick Man”) to keep his baton at bay. But the real moment when Roberts officially GOATed that speech arrived with the fifth word out of her mouth: “Thank you, thank you ever so much!” like she was just handed a scepter from the queen of England. And wield that scepter she did. By a rough watch of the clock, Roberts took three minutes and 48 seconds — including one break to make sure her dress looked pretty — to be gracious (mentioning her fellow nominees), quotable (she loves it up there!), and unabashedly thrilled. The speech was criticized at the time, mostly for being too long and for forgetting to thank the real Erin Brockovich (whom Roberts had thanked profusely at the Golden Globes). But what her critics failed (and in some cases continue to fail) to see is that the Oscars exist as a public pageant because of the power of movie stars. And here was Roberts, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, accepting a long-awaited industry recognition of her talent. So she took her time, straightened her dress, and thanked everybody else, from Steven Soderbergh to Albert Finney, Danny DeVito to her niece Emma. Her speech was everything the Oscars should be: self-indulgent, loudly complimentary about artists, compulsively watchable, and long.

1. 1. Dame Emma Thompson, 53rd Golden Globes (1996)

Best Motion Picture Screenplay, Sense and Sensibility

Let this be your quarterly reminder to invite Dame Emma Thompson to every awards show and let her do whatever she wants. There has never been a more ingenious way of accepting a Hollywood award than when Thompson called a séance on the ghost of Jane Austen after adapting Sense and Sensibility . Owing the success of the film’s writing (and thus the screenplay award she was accepting) to the original author, Thompson jettisoned a traditional speech and instead composed a diary entry in the voice of Austen herself, as if she had attended the Globes. (Among the speech’s many Austen-approximating brilliancies include calling the ceremony the “Golden Spheres” and saving the worst of her scorn for Thompson herself.) In doing so, Thompson simultaneously takes the piss out of the awards, exalts Austen, and ever-so-deftly silences any lingering naysayers who didn’t believe that a mere actress could translate the prose of one of the greatest writers of all time. And after winning the lion’s share of acting prizes a few years before for Howards End , why not have a little fun? Few have ever dared, much less achieved, a pre-written gag awards speech so decadently bold, but Thompson has the talent to pull it off without breaking a sweat. Her Austen invocation feels commensurately silly and self-aggrandizing, while hitting the bull’s-eye of legitimate gratitude. It’s a perfect speech if there ever was one, and it undoubtedly paved the way for her Oscar win that year .

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‘Just keep believing.’ Read Caleb Williams’ full Heisman Trophy speech

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The following is a transcript of the speech USC quarterback Caleb Williams delivered after winning the Heisman Trophy.

First, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you. This is really awesome. This is really awesome to be up here. So first off, I’d like to thank all the Heisman Trust, all the voters, the finalists that sit right here in front of me — C.J. [Stroud], Max [Duggan], Stets [Stetson Bennett]. You guys are unbelievable competitors. And I am so happy to be up here with you all. Knowing Stets from when I went to Georgia on my visits and him being my host, which is kind of funny that I’m up here with him now.

But we’ve all been through this journey these past couple of days together. And I may be standing up here today, but you all get to go to College Football Playoffs.

Guess you can’t win them all.

Caleb Williams wins the Heisman Trophy, cementing his place in USC football lore

After a stellar 2022 campaign, USC quarterback Caleb Williams wins the Heisman Trophy, beating out runner-up Max Duggan, C.J. Stroud and Stetson Bennett.

Dec. 10, 2022

To the men standing behind me. Thank you for your passion for the game. Because kids like me that have dreams and goals of being up here and of being the best started from watching you all, so thank you.

Next, special shout out to my fellow Trojan Matt [Leinart], Cars [Carson Palmer], Mike [Garrett] for always supporting me since I’ve made this journey across the country to USC. But to now be a part of this historic fraternity is truly an honor. It’s something that I will cherish for the rest of my life. While this may be an individual award, I certainly understand that nothing — and absolutely nothing — in this sport, nor life, is done alone.

I would like to thank our athletic director Mike Bohn and his wife, Kim, for being here today. Mike, I appreciate you for always and always making us the best student-athletes possible. My teammates and I greatly appreciate you and all you’ve done for USC.

Big dog, Coach [Lincoln] Riley. We committed to each other on two separate occasions, but with the same dream. As we say, and you’ve heard me say in the locker room, there can never be a great book or a great story without some adversity in it. So since our OU days, we’ve been through a lot. And even the sudden change in field from Norman, Oklahoma, to the University of Southern California, our dreams have not changed. They say you either change your dreams or change your habits, and I damn sure wasn’t going to change my dreams. I’m glad you didn’t change yours either. But we both know the job’s not done.

Mama Riley [Caitlin Riley, Lincoln’s wife], [Riley’s daughters] Sloan, Stella, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your family. And not only that, allowing him to coach me way more than he — he should probably be at home.

I’d like to thank all my USC brothers. I know we didn’t finish the way we wanted to, but the culture bond that we formed will last forever. As I said, we do still have some unfinished business. A special shout out to this group. To the group that’s here today, the offensive linemen. Stand up big guys, wherever you are. We’re all here to celebrate our accomplishment. This doesn’t happen without each one of you — Bobby [Haskins], Courtland [Ford], [Andrew] Vorhees, Gino [Quinones], Brett [Neilon], Dedi [Justin Dedich], Jonah [Monheim], Mason [Murphy]. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you to my brotherhood at Gonzaga College High School. Coach Randy Trivers, where you at, big dog? Stand up. Hey, hey.

You had the courage to start a ninth grader in the toughest high school conference in the country. The Gonzaga experience both on and off the field helped to prepare me in more ways than you can imagine. Coach, you may not know this. But the Gonzaga motto that you drilled into us. “men for others,” has helped inspire me to create the Caleb Cares Foundation, which is all about giving back. So thank you, coach. Thank you, Gonzaga.

It is important to surround yourself with good people and a team that you can trust. Special thanks to Mama Judy, Cody and Phil. Now to my mentors, Coach Mar, Coach Russ [Thomas] and Coach Basha. I appreciate you for always holding me accountable as the man and as a football player and always speaking the truth to me, even when I don’t want to hear. You taught me how to be a QB and not play the position of QB. You taught me how to look at myself in the mirror and like the man that’s looking back.

Where does Caleb Williams rank among USC’s eight Heisman Trophy winners?

An attempt at ranking all eight USC Heisman Trophy winners. Where do Caleb Williams, Reggie Bush and O.J. Simpson rank?

And now, to the most important woman in my life. Thank you for always being my mom first. The woman behind the scenes who has a smile on her face and is willing to help others. You’re an inspiration to me in many ways. To the old man over there, my dad, he always walks to the beat of his own drum. Thank you for showing me the way. You instilled a work ethic in me at a young age that I can’t thank you enough for. From the training sessions and the late-night practices, even opening Athletic Republic so my guys and I could go train. You’re always there for me making sacrifices in your life so I can achieve my dreams, which eventually became our dreams. It may seem to go unnoticed and unappreciated, but you mean the world to me. We’re in this together and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

That’s where my journey started. And it’s not the 4-year old kid that loved just going out there and running and tackling somebody and scoring touchdowns. The journey really started when I was 10. And the season ended and I had to turn my equipment in. And there’s one thing that I vividly remember, is telling my dad in the car ride home that this is what I wanted to do for my career. I wanted to be a football player. I wanted to be a quarterback. I loved it. I loved everything about it. Fast forward a couple years later, I’m crying in a hotel room. And many of you have probably seen me cry after a loss. My team and I just lost the national championship and I didn’t get the chance to play. My coach told me I was too small.

That night, a fire ignited in me. That night I decided to play quarterback. And not only be playing quarterback, but to be the best quarterback. I wanted to impact the game. I wanted to share the ball with all my teammates. And if you know me and my dad, very plan-based, we stayed up all night putting together a plan. And a journey slash plan went like this: 5:30 a.m., breakfast club workouts. We also have 6:30 in the p.m. lift, running conditioning, getting bigger, stronger and faster. We had nutritionists, sleep patterns, sports psychologists, coaching experts and learning and playing the game. The more I learned, the more I wanted.

But the path hasn’t always been easy. And this is me speaking to the 11-year-old out there who’s watching right now, who was told you’re too small, like they told me. Go out there, show them how big your heart is. To the seventh grader who was passed over on the team like I was, use that adversity to ignite your passion like I did. To the ninth grader out there who no one believes can make varsity, you can if you believe. To the 10th grader losing in the championship game but had belief that we were gonna come back and win down 20 in the first half. Always believe that there’s one more Hail Mary up your sleeve. And to the college freshman who was fighting for a chance to contribute and get on the field with your brothers, your time is coming, keep going. And if you lose your bid to get to the College Playoffs, know that you will get through it like I did. And like I just learned. Back to work. The job isn’t done.

The early setbacks that I encountered lit a fire, they started my journey. Your journey will be your own. Just keep believing and keep pursuing your goals. If you’re willing to put in the work and surround yourself with positive people, you can achieve anything. I used to write down my goals in a journal and what used to just be words on a piece of paper has me standing here today. So everyone dreams really do come true.

Thank you. Fight On.

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Inspired ON

John Cappelletti’s Heisman Trophy Speech

InspiredON by Family — Usually it’s the top athletes who inspire boys to dream big dreams of being the star on the field and doing great things. This story flips that notion upside down. This time it’s an 11-year-old boy, stricken with cancer, who inspired his older brother, Heisman Trophy winner John Cappelletti. In 1973, in one of the most moving speeches in the history of college football’s top award, the Penn State running back dedicated the trophy to his 11-year-old brother, Joey, who was battling leukemia. What follows are some excerpts from his acceptance speech that night, and a video highlight of the evening.

John Cappelletti, from direct transcripts of the speech:

“My mother and my father, there isn’t a greater couple around. I know my mother always cries at these affairs, so I want to try not to. She’s a very, very strong woman and very dedicated, not only to her children and husband, but also to God, and I think this helped her out with putting up with us and going through all she has gone through. I think one small example of this, a personal thing with me that I think a lot of people may have noticed, is that my legs are as straight as arrows and that I have no trouble walking now or running, but one time in my life I couldn’t walk without tripping. My mother not only brought me through this but she brought just about every member of our family through something like this.

“My father is a very quiet man, he’s been a great father to all of us. He asked me the other day when I was home what I thought of him as a father. I wouldn’t say much to him then because it’s hard to express things like that, but there is no greater person I have more respect for than this man.

“The next part — I’m very happy to do something like this — I thought about it since the Heisman was announced 10 days ago. … The youngest member of my family, Joseph, is very ill. He has leukemia. If I can dedicate this trophy to him tonight and give him a couple days of happiness, this is worth everything. I think a lot of people think that I go through a lot on Saturdays and during the week as most athletes do, and you get your bumps and bruises and it is a terrific battle out there on the field. Only for me it is on Saturdays and it’s only in the fall. For Joseph, it is all year round and it is a battle that is unending with him and he puts up with much more than I’ll ever put up with and I think that this trophy is more his than mine because he has been a great inspiration to me.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as John gave this speech. Just watch the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YdgWihXJvE]

Unfortunately, his little brother, Joseph, died two years later in 1975.

There’s more to the speech, too. Check it out here, at the Penn State University Archives .

3 thoughts on “ John Cappelletti’s Heisman Trophy Speech ”

I rember this

I had the pleasure to meet John at PSU when Merrill Lynch sponsored an event honoring him as well as several other Heisman Winners, including John Bertelli, of Notre Dame. I especially remember shaking John’s hand and telling him how heart warming his Heisman acceptance speech was to me. My best friend, Owen Koch, a Pennsylvania All-State tackle, died of leukemia several weeks after our high school graduation. He, like John’s little brother, suffered greatly before death released him from his pain. I was never more proud to be a PSU grad the day that I met John.

William R. Phillips, PSU Class of 1963

Thank you for sharing this, William. Anyone who sees this speech will remember it always. I’m sorry for the loss of your friend. May he rest in eternal peace.

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The key to writing the best Heisman acceptance speech

By john buhler | dec 14, 2019.

So you’re about to win the Heisman Trophy? We’re gonna tell you how to write the best Heisman acceptance speech possible and what to do with your hands.

Just because you’re great at playing college football doesn’t mean that you are well-equipped at delivering an acceptance speech.

When you’re getting ready to potentially win the Heisman Trophy, sitting in that chair with a bunch of dudes you don’t even really know, we’re gonna give you some tips on how to crush your Heisman acceptance speech and what to do with your hands.

First things first, this is what you do with your hands: You shake hands of former Heisman winners you walk by, then you grab the Trophy and don’t drop it (it is heavier than you think) while the entire world takes a million photos of you. After you’re done with that, grab the dais with both hands and don’t let go. Otherwise, you will end up regretting it more than that not-so spiffy suit you’ve got on five years from now.

Now, the most important part of the night…”SPEECH!”

This is hard stuff, but you have to only do one thing above all else: Be completely confident in every word you say, no matter how stupid and factually inaccurate it is. Pretend you’re up in D.C. filibustering a bill your collective party hates. Attack the podium with that kind of gusto and you’ll be off to a great start.

As for preparing a speech, don’t do that. Wing it, but carry up a pair of reading glasses and that note pad you’ve been scribbling on since you got into that Holiday Inn Express last night. So you’re up on that stage, you’ve got your glasses on and you’ve got your note pad. You’ve got this. Now it’s time to give college football its greatest soliloquy since Mike Gundy said he was 40.

Okay, we’ve got the swagger and the pieces of flare covered. Now, it’s time to give thanks.

Thank god or some higher power first. Next, you gotta thank your parents, coaches, teammates and everyone who helped you get to this point. You’ll feel overwhelmed when you think back to your mom and/or dad playing catch with you when you were a youth. Try and keep your emotions in check. But if you feel the tears swell up, let it flow, man.

When you get to talking about your dad, let go of the podium and do that over-the-top handshake you and Pops came up with in the driveway last summer. If you didn’t do that, find a YouTube video of a sub-.500 NBA team before tipoff doing their pre-game handshakes and imitate all the best attributes of those said handshakes.

Lastly, the most important thing you can do during the Heisman speech is thanking your mom. She’s a special lady who tolerated all your crap K through 12. Slightly remove your reading glasses and wipe that single tear streaming down your face with the top sheet of paper on your doodling pad. That way it’ll look impromptu because men don’t carry tissues and the south will bless your heart.

After you’ve thanked all the people you can think of in five minutes, walk away from the podium and give a hand gesture that speaks to you. No, don’t give the fine New York people the bird, give them a peace sign at the very least. They’d respect that, but give them what the really want. They. Want. Horns. Down! Go with rock and roll and then hit em’ with the Horns Down. End speech.

Next. College coaches who would be the life of the tailgate party. dark

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.

You know, this moment right here, it's -- it's unbelievably believable . 1 You know, it's unbelievable because in the moment, we're all amazed when great things happen. But it's believable because, you know, great things don't happen without hard work. You know, the great coach Art Briles always says great things only come with great effort, and we've certainly worked for this.

That's right, everybody associated with Baylor University has a -- has a reason to celebrate tonight. You know, to my teammates, I'd like to say thank you. As we say: "The hotter the heat, the harder the steel. No pressure, no diamonds. We compete, we win. We are Baylor."

Baylor we are and Baylor we'll always be, but it's up to us to define what that means, and this Heisman Trophy is only the beginning of that process.

To Baylor Nation, I say this is a forever kind of moment. May we be blessed to have many more like it in the future. God always has a plan, and in this moment -- You know, God always has a plan, and it's our job to fulfill it. And in this moment, we have.

To my dad and my mom, my fiancée, my sisters, Jihan and DeJon , my beautiful niece, Hope, to my family, to my friends, to my teammates, to coach Briles and the coaching staff, to the Baylor administration and Ken Starr , to the city of Copperas Cove and the city of Waco, and all of Baylor nation I say thank you for all your loving support, through the tough times like knee surgeries and glorious moments like this one.

Thank you to the Heisman Trophy Trust and all the Heisman Trophy winners for giving me a chance to be a part of this family.

And, you know, last but not least, I want to thank God for giving me all these -- these great people to be in my life.

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2017 Heisman speech video and transcript: Baker Mayfield’s emotional post-win moment

The Oklahoma QB wins the 83rd Heisman Trophy.

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New York City — Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield won the 2017 Heisman Trophy award on Saturday night, beating out Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson and Stanford running back Bryce Love. Mayfield becomes the first Sooner QB to win the Heisman since Sam Bradford in 2008.

The victory wasn’t at all surprising. The senior lit up Big 12 defenses all season, throwing for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns, and he rushed for another five scores. OU clinched a College Football Playoff spot by beating TCU in the Big 12 Championship Game, but even by mid-November, Bovada had pulled Heisman odds entirely .

Here’s Mayfield’s speech, mostly transcribed below:

Thank you, Billy [Sims, the OU legend who spent the ceremony hollering, “Boomer!”]. Wow. This is unbelievable for me, being up here among these greats. It’s something that words can’t describe. God has put me in a position, I’ve been so blessed, and a lot of the time, I wonder why, but it’s such an honor, to be up here. It’s unbelievable. First, I’d like to say congratulations to Bryce [Love]. Good season, man. Heck of a year. You played well. Getting to know your family as well. No wonder you turned out great. Keep balling. Lamar, good to see you again, man. You know I love your family. You guys are special people. Now I’d like to thank the Heisman Trophy Trust. It’s an honor just to be here, and a blessing. To my big boys up front that protect me, you got Zeus [ Orlando Brown ], Cody Ford , Ben Powers , Erick Wren , Dru Samia , and Bobby Evans. Boys back home, it wouldn’t happen without you. Keep the physicality. We got two more, so we’re worried about that. This one’s for you guys. To my receivers and running backs, I wouldn’t trade for anything. That’s who I’d pick to be in a foxhole with you guys. Our defensive guys as well, they get me better every week. And also our scout team guys, I got respect for them. They keep me competitive during the week, and our team would not be where it’s at without you. I’m proud to play behind those people. It’s been a tough journey. They showed the videos. I walked on twice. To my coaches back at Lake Travis [High School], you guys instilled a work ethic in me that has never left. I think they won their playoff game tonight, so shout out to Lake Travis. To everybody at OU. Staff welcomed me with open arms, and it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me. You guys have pushed me to be the best. Everybody there, it’s been a dream come true. There’s a standard and tradition there thats set very high. The strength staff that pushes me, I came in and wasn’t the most physical specimen that you ever seen, but they push me, really mentally. The nutrition team, I couldn’t do it without you. Coach Stoops, you welcomed a chubby, unathletic kid into the program with open arms. I wouldn’t say that many would do that, but thank you. The thing I’m most thankful for is hiring Coach Riley. The day you did that: changed my life. Coach Riley, you’ve been a great mentor to me. Been through a lot together, so appreciate you. My family, love you guys. There were times that I had to move. You guys made sacrifice after sacrifice, just so I could chase my dreams. Wouldn’t be here without you. Love you. Sacrifice after sacrifice, you guys have instilled a mentality in me of loyalty and how to have a family thats second to none. To all the Sooner fans back home, including Billy up here too, its been a dream come true. Although i grew up in Austin, Texas, I was always Sooner-born and Sooner-bred, and like they say, when I die I’ll be Sooner-dead. It’s an honor to get to represent my school, and there’s many more people that I can thank that helped me get here. Can’t name everybody, cause theres too many. Although that statues gonna have my name on it, it’s more deserving to my team and my coaches. To the kids out there: don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

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The 25 greatest Heisman-winning seasons of all time

The Heisman Trophy is one of sports most indelible awards, given to the best college player during a season. There are most valuable player awards in virtually every sport, but no personal award carries the magnitude of the Heisman. Of course, some Heisman seasons are much bigger than others. Some stand out by their sheer domination, while others culminate a career worth of greatness. The 25 players listed below had outstanding seasons that not only ruled their individual seasons but also have given us lasting memories for years and years. These are the greatest Heisman-winning seasons of all time.

Marcus Allen, USC (1981)

Allen shredded defenses for 2,427 yards (he was the first back to run for 2,000 regular season yards) and 23 total touchdowns. He set or tied 16 records in 1981, including most 200 yard games in a season, career and highest per-game average. 

Sam Bradford, Oklahoma (2008)

Bradford would become the second sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy (Florida's Tim Tebow would win it the prior season) by leading one of the top scoring offenses in college football history. Bradford would throw for 4,464 yards and 48 touchdowns (and only six interceptions) and add five rushing scores. Oklahoma would become the first team to score 60 or more points in five consecutive games. Bradford was the first player in over 50 years to win the Heisman Trophy despite not receiving the most first place votes. (Tebow had nine more first place votes.)

Earl Campbell, Texas (1977)

Campbell led the nation in rushing in 1977 with 1,744 yards and 19 touchdowns. He saved the best for last, as he ran for a career-high 222 yards in his final regular-season game against Texas A&M to help his team finish the season undefeated. (The Longhorns would lose to Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl.) He finished his Texas career with 40 touchdowns in 40 games.

Howard Cassady, Ohio State (1955)

Cassady had a huge season in 1955, rushing for 964 yards and 15 touchdowns...numbers that were ridiculous at the time. He also never had a pass completed against him when he played defensive back. 

Glenn Davis, Army (1946)

"Mr. Outside" had a remarkable career and it could be argued that his 1945 season, when his teammate Doc Blanchard won it, was more worthy of the Heisman Award. Davis rushed for 712 yards in 1946 with seven touchdown rushes and six receiving touchdowns. Davis was a runner-up for the Heisman in 1944 and 1945 before winning it in 1946.

Ron Dayne, Wisconsin (1999)

As Dayne was wrapping up his Heisman season, he would break Ricky Williams' career rushing yards mark. He ran for 2,034 yards and 20 touchdowns, capping off a career that featured two seasons in which he ran for at least 2,000 yards. He also rushed for at least 1,400 yards in all four years. 

Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh (1976)

Dorsett set the all-time career rushing mark in 1976 with his 2,150 yards and 23 touchdowns. His biggest moment of the season was when he shredded Penn State for 224 yards en route to a national championship for the Panthers. 

Doug Flutie, Boston College (1984)

Flutie's Heisman season is remembered mainly for one play: the Hail Flutie against Miami. The truth is that Flutie had already done a lot to earn his Heisman Trophy. He passed for 3,454 yards and 27 touchdowns that year and became the first quarterback in 13 years to win the Heisman. 

Archie Griffin, Ohio State (1974)

So which one of Griffin's Heisman seasons was the best? His junior year makes this list, as he ran for a career-high 1,695 yards and 12 touchdowns. Griffin averaged 6.6 yards per carry and 111 yards per game for the Buckeyes. He dominated the Heisman voting that season, beating USC's Anthony Davis by over 1,000 points.

Desmond Howard, Michigan (1991)

Howard was a lethal receiver and returner for Michigan, and it all came together for a magical 1991 season. He actually led the Big Ten in scoring that year. He caught 985 yards worth of passes for 19 touchdowns, rushed for 180 yards and two touchdowns and returned 694 yards worth of punts and kicks for two more touchdowns. 

Nile Kinnick, Iowa (1939)

Kinnick once played 402 consecutive minutes as the Hawkeyes quarterback and defensive back and missed only 18 minutes of game time all season long. He threw for 11 touchdowns despite attempting just 31 passes all season. He was involved in 107 of the 130 points the Hawkeyes scored that season, leading Iowa to a 6-1-1 mark, and he was named The Associated Press Athlete of the Year. Iowa's football stadium was renamed Kinnick Stadium and is the only college football field named after a Heisman winner.

Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma (2017)

Mayfield followed up 2016 when he was a Heisman runner-up by winning the award in 2017. He threw for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns while completing 71 percent of his passes and tossing just five picks. He led the Sooners to a College Football Playoff berth and finished the year with a passer rating of 203.76.

Kyler Murray, Oklahoma (2018)

Murray stunned everyone by replacing Heisman winner Baker Mayfield and winning his own award the very next year. Murray (who was playing out the year before heading to play in the Oakland Athletics' farm system) threw for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns while also rushing for 1,001 yards and 12 more scores. His season went so well that he became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. 

Cam Newton, Auburn (2010)

Newton played just one season at Auburn, but it was one of the best seasons a quarterback has ever had. He threw for 2,854 yards and 30 touchdowns as well as rushed for 1,473 yards and 20 touchdowns as he led the Tigers to a national championship. Newton's Heisman moment was when he brought Auburn back from a 24-0 deficit to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl. 

Mike Rozier, Nebraska (1983)

Rozier was the main cog in a Cornhuskers' potent rushing attack in the early 1980s. In 1983, Rozier rushed for 2,148 yards and 29 touchdowns, and his 7.8 yards-per-carry that season is among the best all time. In a game against the Kansas Jayhawks, Rozier would rush for 230 yards...in the first half. He ended the season with four consecutive 200-yard games. 

Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State (1988)

Sanders' 1988 season is one of the best campaigns in sports history, let alone in college football. Sanders ran for 2,850 yards and 44 touchdowns (including the bowl game). He had seven games in which he rushed for at least 200 yards and four games when he ran for at least 300 yards. Only 13 schools in 1988 rushed for more yards than Sanders did by himself. 

O.J. Simpson, USC (1968)

Simpson nearly (read: should have) won the Heisman trophy in 1967, but he certainly dominated the award in 1968. Simpson ran for 1,880 yards and 232 touchdowns and won by what is still the largest margin of victory for a Heisman winner. In his final game as a Trojan, he ran for 171 yards and a TD in a loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.

Tim Tebow, Florida (2007)

Tebow's 2007 was filled with firsts. He was the first quarterback to throw for 20 touchdowns and run for 20 touchdowns. (His 23 rushing touchdowns set the mark for most in a season by a player in any position in SEC history.) He also was the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. Amazingly, his 2007 Heisman season was sandwiched between two national championships won by Tebow and Florida.

Vinny Testaverde, Miami (1986)

Testaverde continued Miami's remarkable run of great quarterbacks by becoming the first one to win a Heisman. In 1986, Testaverde passed for 2,557 yards and 26 touchdowns in leading the Hurricanes to an undefeated regular season. (Miami would lose to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.) He blew away the Heisman voting field, as he received 1,541 more points than Temple's Paul Palmer. 

Herschel Walker, Georgia (1982)

This is how the Heisman trophy works sometimes: Walker's 1981 season was even better, but Marcus Allen's year earned him the award. So Walker's 1982 season instead made him a Heisman legend. He ran for 1,752 yards and 17 touchdowns that season despite playing a few games in a cast. Georgia lost its shot at a national championship when Penn State beat the top-ranked Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl.

Charlie Ward, Florida State (1993)

Ward and Florida State had a magical 1993 season when the program won its first national championship and first Heisman Trophy. Ward threw for 3,032 yards and 27 touchdowns with just four interceptions. He also rushed for 339 yards and four scores, and he holds the third-biggest margin of victory in Heisman history.

Ricky Williams, Texas (1998)

Williams rushed for 2,427 yards and 30 touchdowns in 1998 and set the all-time career rushing mark. He had two games in which he rushed for six touchdowns and another where he ran for five. Williams also had five games in which he ran for at least 200 yards (and twice ran for over 300) that year and shares the record for career 200-yard games.

Jameis Winston, Florida State (2013)

Winston had one of the best freshman seasons ever when he won the Heisman Trophy and a national championship. He threw for 4,057 yards and 40 touchdowns (he also ran for four scores), and he won the Offensive MVP of the BCS Championship. Winston would win the Heisman, Maxwell, Manning, Griffin and Associated Press Awards that year.

Charles Woodson, Michigan (1997)

When you are the only primary defensive player to win a Heisman trophy — especially when the guy who finished in second place was Peyton Manning — you've had one of the best seasons ever. Woodson picked off passes, defended some of the best receivers and even returned punts. He was a major player who led the Wolverines to a share of the 1997 national championship.

Danny Wuerffel, Florida (1996)

Not only did Wuerffel put up stats befitting of a Heisman winner (3,625 yards passing, 39 TDs) but also it was whom he did it against. The Gators faced No. 1 Florida State twice, No. 2 Tennessee, No. 11 Alabama, No. 12 LSU and No. 16 Auburn en route to its first national championship. Wuerffel ran Steve Spurrier's "fun and gun" offense efficiently and better than anyone who came through his Florida program.

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'Just keep believing.' Read Caleb Williams' full Heisman Trophy speech

The following is a transcript of the speech USC quarterback Caleb Williams delivered after winning the Heisman Trophy.

First, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you. This is really awesome. This is really awesome to be up here. So first off, I'd like to thank all the Heisman Trust, all the voters, the finalists that sit right here in front of me — C.J. [Stroud], Max [Duggan], Stets [Stetson Bennett]. You guys are unbelievable competitors. And I am so happy to be up here with you all. Knowing Stets from when I went to Georgia on my visits and him being my host, which is kind of funny that I'm up here with him now.

But we've all been through this journey these past couple of days together. And I may be standing up here today, but you all get to go to College Football Playoffs.

Guess you can't win them all.

To the men standing behind me. Thank you for your passion for the game. Because kids like me that have dreams and goals of being up here and of being the best started from watching you all, so thank you.

Next, special shout out to my fellow Trojan Matt [Leinart], Cars [Carson Palmer], Mike [Garrett] for always supporting me since I've made this journey across the country to USC. But to now be a part of this historic fraternity is truly an honor. It's something that I will cherish for the rest of my life. While this may be an individual award, I certainly understand that nothing — and absolutely nothing — in this sport, nor life, is done alone.

I would like to thank our athletic director Mike Bohn and his wife, Kim, for being here today. Mike, I appreciate you for always and always making us the best student-athletes possible. My teammates and I greatly appreciate you and all you've done for USC.

Big dog, Coach [Lincoln] Riley. We committed to each other on two separate occasions, but with the same dream. As we say, and you've heard me say in the locker room, there can never be a great book or a great story without some adversity in it. So since our OU days, we've been through a lot. And even the sudden change in field from Norman, Oklahoma, to the University of Southern California, our dreams have not changed. They say you either change your dreams or change your habits, and I damn sure wasn't going to change my dreams. I'm glad you didn't change yours either. But we both know the job's not done.

Mama Riley [Caitlin Riley, Lincoln's wife], [Riley's daughters] Sloan, Stella, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your family. And not only that, allowing him to coach me way more than he — he should probably be at home.

I'd like to thank all my USC brothers. I know we didn't finish the way we wanted to, but the culture bond that we formed will last forever. As I said, we do still have some unfinished business. A special shout out to this group. To the group that's here today, the offensive linemen. Stand up big guys, wherever you are. We're all here to celebrate our accomplishment. This doesn't happen without each one of you — Bobby [Haskins], Courtland [Ford], [Andrew] Vorhees, Gino [Quinones], Brett [Neilon], Dedi [Justin Dedich], Jonah [Monheim], Mason [Murphy]. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you to my brotherhood at Gonzaga College High School. Coach Randy Trivers, where you at, big dog? Stand up. Hey, hey.

You had the courage to start a ninth grader in the toughest high school conference in the country. The Gonzaga experience both on and off the field helped to prepare me in more ways than you can imagine. Coach, you may not know this. But the Gonzaga motto that you drilled into us. "men for others," has helped inspire me to create the Caleb Cares Foundation, which is all about giving back. So thank you, coach. Thank you, Gonzaga.

It is important to surround yourself with good people and a team that you can trust. Special thanks to Mama Judy, Cody and Phil. Now to my mentors, Coach Mar, Coach Russ [Thomas] and Coach Basha. I appreciate you for always holding me accountable as the man and as a football player and always speaking the truth to me, even when I don't want to hear. You taught me how to be a QB and not play the position of QB. You taught me how to look at myself in the mirror and like the man that's looking back.

And now, to the most important woman in my life. Thank you for always being my mom first. The woman behind the scenes who has a smile on her face and is willing to help others. You're an inspiration to me in many ways. To the old man over there, my dad, he always walks to the beat of his own drum. Thank you for showing me the way. You instilled a work ethic in me at a young age that I can't thank you enough for. From the training sessions and the late-night practices, even opening Athletic Republic so my guys and I could go train. You're always there for me making sacrifices in your life so I can achieve my dreams, which eventually became our dreams. It may seem to go unnoticed and unappreciated, but you mean the world to me. We're in this together and I wouldn't want it any other way.

That's where my journey started. And it's not the 4-year old kid that loved just going out there and running and tackling somebody and scoring touchdowns. The journey really started when I was 10. And the season ended and I had to turn my equipment in. And there's one thing that I vividly remember, is telling my dad in the car ride home that this is what I wanted to do for my career. I wanted to be a football player. I wanted to be a quarterback. I loved it. I loved everything about it. Fast forward a couple years later, I'm crying in a hotel room. And many of you have probably seen me cry after a loss. My team and I just lost the national championship and I didn't get the chance to play. My coach told me I was too small.

That night, a fire ignited in me. That night I decided to play quarterback. And not only be playing quarterback, but to be the best quarterback. I wanted to impact the game. I wanted to share the ball with all my teammates. And if you know me and my dad, very plan-based, we stayed up all night putting together a plan. And a journey slash plan went like this: 5:30 a.m., breakfast club workouts. We also have 6:30 in the p.m. lift, running conditioning, getting bigger, stronger and faster. We had nutritionists, sleep patterns, sports psychologists, coaching experts and learning and playing the game. The more I learned, the more I wanted.

But the path hasn't always been easy. And this is me speaking to the 11-year-old out there who's watching right now, who was told you're too small, like they told me. Go out there, show them how big your heart is. To the seventh grader who was passed over on the team like I was, use that adversity to ignite your passion like I did. To the ninth grader out there who no one believes can make varsity, you can if you believe. To the 10th grader losing in the championship game but had belief that we were gonna come back and win down 20 in the first half. Always believe that there's one more Hail Mary up your sleeve. And to the college freshman who was fighting for a chance to contribute and get on the field with your brothers, your time is coming, keep going. And if you lose your bid to get to the College Playoffs, know that you will get through it like I did. And like I just learned. Back to work. The job isn't done.

The early setbacks that I encountered lit a fire, they started my journey. Your journey will be your own. Just keep believing and keep pursuing your goals. If you're willing to put in the work and surround yourself with positive people, you can achieve anything. I used to write down my goals in a journal and what used to just be words on a piece of paper has me standing here today. So everyone dreams really do come true.

Thank you. Fight On.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .

The 7 Best Heisman Trophy Winners of All Time, Ranked

The NFL MVP has turned into who is the best quarterback on the best team. The MLB MVPs are announced weeks after everyone has forgotten about the season. I assume the best player in college basketball has been Perry Ellis for the past decade. The NBA MVP is still held in high regard, but it doesn't have anything on the Heisman Trophy.

The Heisman has an unparalleled prestige. I love watching Heisman moments unfold in real time. I love the history. I love old winners attending the ceremony and welcoming a new brother into their fraternity. I love the portraits. I love the trophy itself. I love seeing the Nissan Heisman House get another tenant to help reduce rent.

Winning the Heisman Trophy cements players in college football lore regardless if they're remembered as one of the worst winners of all time , or, in this case, one of the best. Everyone who's won the award is great in some capacity, but there are seven who stand above the rest.

The 7 Best Heisman Trophy Winners of All Time

7. herschel walker, georgia.

Ronald C. Modra /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

Georgia running back Herschel Walker ran for 1,891 yards and 18 touchdowns as a junior in 1981. Yet, his best college season wasn't capped with a Heisman win, which shows how incredible the player who won it was. (Don't worry, we'll talk about him later.)

Walker followed up his career season by rushing for 1,752 yards and 16 touchdowns while leading the Bulldogs to a third-straight SEC Championship and an appearance in the national title game against Penn State. His numbers are even more impressive considering he only ran for 20 yards in the season opener after fracturing his thumb in fall camp .

The UGA back further grew his legend by bringing beloved Georgia mascot Uga to the Heisman ceremony in New York City .

6. Tim Tebow, Florida

Cliff Welch/Icon SMI/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

College football hadn't seen a quarterback like Tim Tebow before he arrived at Florida. His uniqueness helped him become the first QB in college football history to ever run for 20 touchdowns and throw for 20 in the same season . Thus, he became the first sophomore to win the Heisman.

All in all, the Gator football player finished the year with 3,286 yards and 32 touchdowns through the air and 895 yards and 23 touchdowns on the ground to beat out Arkansas running back Darren McFadden for the coveted award.

Who could forget Tebow hoisting the trophy with that humongous cast.

5. Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh

Tony Tomsic /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

Dorsett was the NCAA's all-time leading rusher for 22 years before fellow Heisman winner Ricky Williams broke his record in 1998 .

His numbers during his 1976 Heisman season are out of a video game. He ran for 2,150 yards and 22 touchdowns and averaged 215 yards per game in the final seven contests . The Panther legend finished his career by running for 202 yards and a touchdown against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship.

4. Cam Newton, Auburn

Simon Bruty /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

RELATED: Cam Newton's "Heisman Moment" Helped Auburn Topple LSU

Auburn quarterback Cam Newton became the second signal caller to throw and run for 20 touchdowns in a season three years after Tebow. He threw for 2,854 yards and 30 touchdowns and ran for an astonishing 1,473 yards and 20 touchdowns . He caught a touchdown pass, too.

The Auburn version of Newton was remarkable because he made everyone around him better. The offensive unit wasn't loaded with crazy talent — no other player played more than two games in the NFL — but Newton turned them into the seventh best offense in the country that season.

Aside from leading the Tigers to a national championship, Newton spearheading a 24-point comeback against Alabama is one of the greatest performances the sport has ever seen.

3. Marcus Allen, USC

Peter Read Miller /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

The guy who outperformed Walker in 1981 was none other than USC running back Marcus Allen. What did it take to win the award over the beast from Athens ? Only becoming the first 2,000-yard rusher in NCAA history (he finished the season with 2,427), setting 14 NCAA records, running for 200 yards in five straight games and scoring 23 total touchdowns. On top of all that, Allen led the Trojans in receiving with 34 catches for 256 yards.

Allen's Heisman season is indisputably one of the greatest in college football history. Walker easily wins the award any other year.

2. Joe Burrow, LSU

Don Juan Moore/Getty Images

Joe Burrow made everything look easy when he quarterbacked the 2019 LSU Tigers to the national championship. He threw for an unbelievable 5,671 yards and 60 touchdowns against 6 interceptions while completing 76.3% of his passes .

All this — plus an undefeated season — led to Burrow securing 93.88% of total possible Heisman votes, which is the largest margin of victory in the trophy's history .

Sure, having NFL studs like Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase didn't hurt, but Burrow never looked phased when leading the offense. He was as close to perfect as you can get.

1. Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State

Doug Hoke /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

The Heisman Trophy was Barry Sanders' to lose from the moment the 1988 season kicked off. The Cowboy running back exploded for 2,628 yards and 37 (!) touchdowns on the ground while also handling kick and punt return duties. He finished the season with 3,250 all-purpose yards, which was an NCAA single-season record until Christian McCaffrey broke it in 2015 .

There isn't anyone defenses feared more in college football history than Sanders that year. He was unstoppable and walked away with the Heisman over USC running back Rodney Peete and UCLA QB Troy Aikman.

Honorable Mentions

1963 : Roger Staubach, Quarterback, Navy

1968 : O.J. Simpson, Running Back, USC

1977 : Earl Campbell, Running Back, Texas

1983 : Mike Rozier, Running Back, Nebraska

1986 : Vinny Testaverde, Quarterback, Miami

1991 : Desmond Howard, Wide Receiver, Michigan

1993 : Charlie Ward, Quarterback, Florida State

1998 : Ricky Williams, Running Back, Texas

2013 : Jameis Winston, Quarterback, Florida State

2016 : Lamar Jackson, Quarterback, Louisville

2017 : Baker Mayfield, Quarterback, Oklahoma

2018 : Kyler Murray, Quarterback, Oklahoma

2020 : DeVonta Smith, Wide Receiver, Alabama

MORE: The 8 Worst Heisman Trophy Winners of All Time, Ranked

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The Best Heisman Trophy Winners of All Time

Who is the best Heisman Trophy winner of all time? Since 1935, the Heisman Trophy has been handed out to the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity. Some of the greatest players in college football history have won this award. The Heisman Trophy is one of the most coveted awards in all of American sports. Of the tens of thousands of players who compete on Saturdays, many of them want to win this award. So, who is the best Heisman ever?

P ro Football Hall of Fame running backs like Oklahoma State's Barry Sanders, USC's Marcus Allen and Texas's Earl Campbell were all recipients of the Heisman Trophy. Ohio State's Archie Griffin is the only two-time Heisman winner. More recently, quarterbacks like LSU's Joe Burrow, Auburn's Cam Newton, Baylor's Robert Griffin III and Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel have won the award.   

Vote up the best Heisman Trophy winners of all time., and help decide who is the greatest Heisman ever!

Barry Sanders

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Herschel Walker

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Earl Campbell

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Charles Woodson

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Roger Staubach

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Marcus Allen

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Derrick Henry

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Tony Dorsett

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Archie Griffin

Only Two-Time Heisman Winner Ever

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Ricky Williams

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Eddie George

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Reggie Bush

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Lamar Jackson

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Doak Walker

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Doug Flutie

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Ernie Davis

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Desmond Howard

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Jim Plunkett

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O. J. Simpson

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DeVonta Smith

Paul Hornung

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Baker Mayfield

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Ranking the best hall of fame speeches, share this article.

The annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held on Saturday in Canton, Ohio. All of the honorees delivered excellent speeches. Here’s how they ranked.

8. Robert Brazile

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Overview: Getting into the Hall of Fame was a longtime coming for the all-time great Oilers linebacker, who in a low-key address expressed gratitude for being recognized. “After all these years,” he said, “I’m at home!”

Presented by: Robert Brazile Sr.

Key quote: “When I told my wife Brenda that I didn’t know how to start this speech, she looked at me and said, ‘I don’t think starting the speech will be your problem.'”

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The 21 greatest graduation speeches of the last 60 years

By german lopez on may 11, 2016.

Graduation speeches are the last opportunity for a high school or college to educate its students. It's unsurprising, then, that these institutions often pull in some of the world's most powerful people to leave an equally powerful impression on their students. Here are the best of those speeches and some of the sections that resonate the most.

David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College, 2005

Jamie Sullivan

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?' This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches: the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bulshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish.”

Steve Jobs at Stanford University, 2005

Stanford University

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Ellen Degeneres at Tulane University, 2009

Tulane University

“I know that a lot of you are concerned about your future, but there’s no need to worry. The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine. It’s gonna be great. You’ve already survived a hurricane. What else can happen to you? And as I mentioned before, some of the most devastating things that happen to you will teach you the most. And now you know the right questions to ask for your first job interview — like, ‘Is it above sea level?’ So to conclude my conclusion that I’ve previously concluded in the common cement speech, I guess what I’m trying to say is life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain. And if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with. And you’ll be drunk most of the time.”

Conan O'Brien at Dartmouth College, 2011

“Way back in the 1940s there was a very, very funny man named Jack Benny. He was a giant star and easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation. And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasn’t. He emulated Jack Benny, but his own quirks and mannerisms, along with a changing medium, pulled him in a different direction. And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation. David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are — my peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this: it is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can be a catalyst for profound reinvention.”

Carol Bartz at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012

University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Accept failure and learn from it. Failure is part of life, it’s part of every career, and you have to know how to take advantage of it. The single greatest strength that this country has via Silicon Valley is that failure is seen as a sign of experience. Failure is part of work, it’s part of life. People are willing to take risks on the way to innovation. One of my fondest sayings is fail, fast, forward. Recognize you’ve failed, try to do it fast, learn from it, build on it, and move forward. Embrace failure, have it be part of your persona. You’re going to have long careers, as I’ve already told you, you’re going to have many failures — personal, business, professional. I’ve had my share. But just use this as a building block to your next success.”

President John F. Kennedy at American University, 1963

“Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems. With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor — it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.”

David McCullough Jr. at Wellesley High School, 2012

Wellesley High School

“Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence — a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air, and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you but for the good they will do others — the rest of the 6.8 billion and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special, because everyone is.”

Stephen Colbert at Northwestern University, 2011

Joshua Sherman

“You have been told to follow your dreams, but what if it’s a stupid dream? For instance, Stephen Colbert of 25 years ago lived at 2015 North Ridge with two men and three women in what I now know was a brothel. He dreamed of living alone — well, alone with his beard in a large, barren loft apartment, lots of blonde wood, wearing a kimono, with a futon on the floor and a Samovar of tea constantly bubbling in the background, doing Shakespeare in the street for homeless people. Today, I am a beardless, suburban dad who lives in a house, wears no iron khakis, and makes Anthony Weiner jokes for a living. And I love it, because thankfully dreams can change. If we’d all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses. So whatever your dream is right now, if you don’t achieve it, you haven’t failed, and you’re not some loser. But just as importantly — and this is the part I may not get right and you may not listen to — if you do get your dream, you are not a winner.”

Sheryl Sandberg at Harvard Business School, 2012

Harvard Business School

“I sat down with Eric Schmidt, who had just become the CEO [of Google], and I showed him the spreadsheet and I said, this job meets none of my criteria. He put his hand on my sheet and he looked at me and said, ‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Excellent career advice. And then he said, ‘Get on a rocketship. When companies are growing quickly and having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. And when companies aren’t growing quickly or their missions don’t matter as much, that’s when stagnation and politics come in. If you’re offered a seat on a rocketship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.’”

Michael Lewis at Princeton University, 2012

Princeton University

“In a general sort of way you’ve been appointed leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense right now its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interest to anything. All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may deserve the extra cookie. But you will be happier, and you will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.”

Jon Stewart at the College of William & Mary, 2004

College of William & Mary

“Lets talk about the real world for a moment. ... I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt: we broke it. Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize. But here’s the good news: you fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people.”

Oprah Winfrey at Spelman College, 2012

Spelman College

“You must have some kind of vision for your life, even if you don’t know the plan. You have to have a direction in which you choose to go. I never was the kind of woman who liked to get in a car and just go for a ride. I had a boyfriend that would say, ‘Let’s just go for a ride.’ I want to know where are we going. Do we have a destination? Is there a plan? Are we just riding? What I’ve learned is that’s a great metaphor for life. You want to be in the driver’s seat of your own life, because if you’re not, life will drive you.”

Neil Gaiman at the University of the Arts, 2012

Lennie Alzate

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right. The things I’ve done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain about, the stories where I was sure they would either work or more likely be the kinds of embarrassing failures that people would gather together and discuss until the end of time. They always had that in common. Looking back at them, people explain why they were inevitable successes. And while I was doing them, I had no idea. I still don’t. And where would be the fun in making something you knew was going to work? And sometimes the things I did really didn’t work. There are stories of mine that have never been reprinted. Some of them never even left the house. But I learned as much from them as I did from the things that worked.”

George Saunders at Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences, 2013

Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences

“Seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines energetically for the rest of your life. And do all the other things of course, the ambitious things: travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in a wild jungle river — after first testing it for monkey poop. But as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”

Nora Ephron at Wellesley College, 1996

Wellesley College

“So what are you going to do? This is the season when a clutch of successful women who have it all get up and give speeches to women like you and say, ‘To be perfectly honest, you can’t have it all.’ Well, maybe young women don’t wonder whether they can have it all any longer, but in case any of you are wondering, of course you can have it all. What are you going to do? Everything is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it’s going to be like, but surprises are good for you. And don't be frightened. You can always change your mind. I know. I've had four careers and three husbands. And this is something else I want to tell you, one of the hundreds of things I didn’t know when I was sitting here so many years ago: you are not going to be you, fixed and immutable you, forever.”

Aaron Sorkin at Syracuse University, 2012

Syracuse University

“Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world. Don't ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day: civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance — and since you're walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy. … Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.”

Barbara Kingsolver at DePauw University, 1994

DePauw University

“It’s not up to you to save the world. That’s the job of every living person who likes the idea of a future. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and give you one little piece of advice, and that is, like the idea of a future. Believe you have it in you to make the world look better rather than worse seven generations from now. Figure out what that could look like. And then if you’re lucky, you’ll find a way to live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.”

Jane Lynch at Smith College, 2012

Smith College

“My counsel to you, women of Smith College: let life surprise you. Don’t have a plan. Plans are for wusses. If my life went according to my plan, I would never ever have the life I have today. Now, you are obviously good planners, or you wouldn’t be here. So stop it! Stop it now! Don’t deprive yourself of the exciting journey your life can be when you relinquish the need to have goals and a blueprint.”

Bill Gates at Harvard University, 2007

Harvard University

“In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue — a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don’t have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them. Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on big inequities. I feel sure it will be one of the great experiences of your lives.”

Eugene Mirman at Lexington High School, 2009

Eugene Mirman

“What’s the worst grade you’ve ever gotten? A D? An F? When I was in eighth grade in Diamond Middle School on a homework assignment — this is true — I once got a -8. Sadly very true. I did my assignment worse than not doing it. But did I let getting a grade lower than the lowest possible grade stop me? No. I was put into resource room in special education, and I turned my F into a D. So you see sometimes you can fail, then barely pass, and then become a comedian.”

Michelle Obama at Spelman College, 2011

“Some of you may have grown up like me, in neighborhoods where few had the chance to go to college, where being teased for doing well in school was a fact of life, where well-meaning but misguided folks questioned whether a girl with my background could get into a school like Princeton. Sometimes I’d save them the trouble and raised the questions myself, in my own head, lying awake at night, doubting whether I had what it took to succeed. And the truth is that there will always be folks out there who make assumptions about others. There will always be folks who try to raise themselves up by cutting other people down. That happens to everyone, including me, throughout their lives. But when that happens to you all, here’s what I want you to do: I want you to just stop a minute, take a deep breath — because it’s going to need to be deep — and I want you to think about all those women who came before you.”

• The formula for a good life after college
• Girls have gotten better grades than boys for 100 years
• The job market for 2014 grads: still awful
• Editor Eleanor Barkhorn
• Designer: Uy Tieu
• Developer Yuri Victor
• Special Thanks Chao Li

10 of the Most Famous and Inspirational Speeches from History

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

What makes a great and iconic speech? There are numerous examples of brilliant orators and speechmakers throughout history, from classical times to the present day. What the best speeches tend to have in common are more than just a solid intellectual argument: they have emotive power, or, for want of a more scholarly word, ‘heart’. Great speeches rouse us to action, or move us to tears – or both.

But of course, historic speeches are often also associated with landmark, or watershed, moments in a nation’s history: when Churchill delivered his series of wartime speeches to Britain in 1940, it was against the backdrop of a war which was still in its early, uncertain stages. And when Martin Luther King stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he was addressing a crowd who, like him, were marching for justice, freedom, and civil rights for African Americans.

Let’s take a closer look at ten of the best and most famous speeches from great moments in history.

Abraham Lincoln, ‘ Gettysburg Address ’ (1863).

The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches in American history, yet it was extremely short – just 268 words, or less than a page of text – and Abraham Lincoln, who gave the address, wasn’t even the top billing .

The US President Abraham Lincoln gave this short address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on 19 November 1863. At the time, the American Civil War was still raging, and the Battle of Gettysburg had been the bloodiest battle in the war, with an estimated 23,000 casualties.

Lincoln’s speech has been remembered while Edward Everett’s – the main speech delivered on that day – has long been forgotten because Lincoln eschewed the high-flown allusions and wordy style of most political orators of the nineteenth century. Instead, he addresses his audience in plain, homespun English that is immediately relatable and accessible.

Sojourner Truth, ‘ Ain’t I a Woman? ’ (1851).

Sometimes known as ‘Ar’n’t I a Woman?’, this is a speech which Sojourner Truth, a freed African slave living in the United States, delivered in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. The women in attendance were being challenged to call for the right to vote.

In her speech, Sojourner Truth attempts to persuade the audience to give women the vote . As both an ex-slave and a woman, Sojourner Truth knew about the plight of both groups of people in the United States. Her speech shows her audience the times: change is coming, and it is time to give women the rights that should be theirs.

John Ball, ‘ Cast off the Yoke of Bondage ’ (1381).

The summer of 1381 was a time of unrest in England. The so-called ‘Peasants’ Revolt’, led by Wat Tyler (in actual fact, many of the leaders of the revolt were more well-to-do than your average peasant), gathered force until the rebels stormed London, executing a number of high-ranking officials, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, Simon Sudbury.

Alongside Tyler, the priest John Ball was an important leading figure of the rebellion. His famous couplet, ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, / Who was then the gentleman?’ sums up the ethos of the Peasants’ Revolt: social inequality was unheard of until men created it.

Winston Churchill, ‘ We Shall Fight on the Beaches ’ (1940).

Winston Churchill had only recently assumed the role of UK Prime Minister when he gave the trio of wartime speeches which have gone down in history for their rhetorical skill and emotive power. This, for our money, is the best of the three.

Churchill gave this speech in the House of Commons on 4 June 1940. Having brought his listeners up to speed with what has happened, Churchill comes to the peroration of his speech : by far the most famous part. He reassures them that if nothing is neglected and all arrangements are made, he sees no reason why Britain cannot once more defend itself against invasion: something which, as an island nation, it has always been susceptible to by sea, and now by air.

Even if it takes years, and even if Britain must defend itself alone without any help from its allies, this is what must happen. Capitulation to the Nazis is not an option. The line ‘if necessary for years; if necessary, alone’ is sure to send a shiver down the spine, as is the way Churchill barks ‘we shall never surrender!’ in the post-war recording of the speech he made several years later.

William Faulkner, ‘ The Agony and the Sweat ’ (1950).

This is the title sometimes given to one of the most memorable Nobel Prize acceptance speeches: the American novelist William Faulkner’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature at Stockholm in 1950.

In his speech, Faulkner makes his famous statement about the ‘duty’ of writers: that they should write about ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’, as well as emotions and themes such as compassion, sacrifice, courage, and hope. He also emphasises that being a writer is hard work, and involves understanding human nature in all its complexity. But good writing should also remind readers what humankind is capable of.

Emmeline Pankhurst, ‘ The Plight of Women ’ (1908).

Pankhurst (1858-1928) was the leader of the British suffragettes, campaigning – and protesting – for votes for women. After she realised that Asquith’s Liberal government were unlikely to grand women the vote, the Women’s Social and Political Union, founded by Pankhurst with her daughter Christabel, turned to more militant tactics to shift public and parliamentary opinion.

Her emphasis in this speech is on the unhappy lot most women could face, in marriage and in motherhood. She also shows how ‘man-made’ the laws of England are, when they are biased in favour of men to the detriment of women’s rights.

This speech was given at the Portman Rooms in London in 1908; ten years later, towards the end of the First World War, women over 30 were finally given the vote. But it would be another ten years, in 1928 – the year of Pankhurst’s death – before the voting age for women was equal to that for men (21 years).

Franklin Roosevelt, ‘ The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself ’ (1933).

This is the title by which Roosevelt’s speech at his inauguration in 1933 has commonly become known, and it has attained the status of a proverb. Roosevelt was elected only a few years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression.

Roosevelt’s famous line in the speech, which offered hope to millions of Americans dealing with unemployment and poverty, was probably inspired by a line from Henry David Thoreau, a copy of whose writings FDR had been gifted shortly before his inauguration. The line about having nothing to fear except fear itself was, in fact, only added into the speech the day before the inauguration took place, but it ensured that the speech went down in history.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, ‘ Among Us You Can Dwell No Longer ’ (63 BC).

Of all of the great classical orators, perhaps the greatest of all was the Roman statesman, philosopher, and speechmaker, Cicero (whose name literally means ‘chickpea’).

This is probably his best-known speech. At the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, Cicero addressed the crowd, but specifically directed his comments towards Lucius Catiline, who was accused of plotting a conspiracy to set fire to the capital and stage and insurrection. The speech was considered such a fine example of Roman rhetoric that it was a favourite in classrooms for centuries after, as Brian MacArthur notes in The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches .

Queen Elizabeth I, ‘ The Heart and Stomach of a King ’ (1588).

Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to the troops at Tilbury is among the most famous and iconic speeches in English history. On 9 August 1588, Elizabeth addressed the land forces which had been mobilised at the port of Tilbury in Essex, in preparation for the expected invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

When she gave this speech, Elizabeth was in her mid-fifties and her youthful beauty had faded. But she had learned rhetoric as a young princess, and this training served her well when she wrote and delivered this speech (she was also a fairly accomplished poet ).

She famously tells her troops: ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too’. She acknowledged the fact that her body was naturally less masculine and strong than the average man’s, but it is not mere physical strength that will win the day. It is courage that matters.

Martin Luther King, ‘ I Have a Dream ’ (1963).

Let’s conclude this selection of the best inspirational speeches with the best-known of all of Martin Luther King’s speeches. The occasion for this piece of oratorical grandeur was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial. King reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give the speech, writing it out.

King’s speech imagines a collective vision of a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans, but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

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10 Inspirational Locker Room Speeches That Will Remind You It's More Than Just A Game

When it comes down to it, a sport is much more than just a game. You're playing for your team. You're playing for your brothers, your sisters and anyone who ever believed in you.

But when you're getting your ass whooped, sometimes it's hard to keep the faith. However as we all know, it's how you react to adversity and bounce back that measures the greatness of an individual.

The true leaders are guys who motivate those around them. And, sometimes, this needs to be vocalized just like we've seen in countless locker room speeches.

Once you master this, it can be applied to anything in life as the recipe for success is pretty much universal -- hard work and not being afraid to fail! These are 10 Inspirational Locker Room Speeches That Will Remind You It's More Than Just A Game.

Jameis Winston Fires Up Florida State

Even as a freshman for no. 1 Florida State, Jameis Winston proved his value as a leader with this brief, but epic halftime speech. Down to Clemson heading into the third, Famous Jameis reminded his brothers that they should smile. There was just no way he was letting them leave Death Valley without a win. The fact that he went on to lead his team to the victory only solidifies his status as this year's Heisman winner.

Ray Lewis Hypes Up The Stanford Men's Basketball Team

Before a 2010 NIT Tournament at Madison Square Garden, Ray Lewis surprised the Stanford basketball team by delivering them a rousing speech before tipoff. That extra motivation was all they needed as they went on to win the championship game over Minnesota.

West Virginia Coach Bill Stewart Inspires His Troops

Former West Virginia Mountaineers coach Bill Stewart died suddenly from a heart attack in May 2012 at the age of 59, but he left his mark with his team when it counted. Before a match up between Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl, he left no doubt what the team needed to do as the Mountaineers went on to best the Sooners to win the game. His ability to motivate the team was his biggest strength as a coach and this moment proved it. This man was a true legend.

Ed Reed At The University of Miami

Before he was patrolling NFL secondaries, Ed Reed was a legend at the college level for the Miami Hurricanes. Hurting at the half, he didn't have much else to say to his team than to try harder. Playing while injured, Ed Reed is probably the last of a dying breed of safeties who put it all out on the line. If you need any more convincing that he was born to do this, then watch this.

Les Miles Plays For Victory

Les Miles has one motive every time he takes his team out onto the field: play for victory. Dominate the opponent, play together and beat their ass. This recipe for success has been pretty solid for him as one of the top teams in the SEC as he has the power to make his team rise up to any occasion.

Chuck Pagano After Beating Cancer

After his year-long (successful) battle with cancer, Colts head coach visited the team in the locker room to thank them for their support and help when his family needed it most. Then rookie quarterback Andrew Luck had a lot to do with the team's success, but it was all 53 guys on the roster who made their 2012 season a success and building block for the team's future. His illness surely made everyone realize that they were playing for more than just themselves, but for everyone around them.

LeBron James Fires Up The Heat In The Playoffs

I'll admit, this isn't the most motivational pre-game speech of all time, but these are the words and advice of one of the best ever to play the game. LeBron James has the mental aspect of the game down as he stays focused through some of the biggest distractions to continue to perfect his game and to make others around him better. Plus he has the heart of a champion!

Tim Tebow Proves His Greatness

When it's all said and done, and we can take a step back to look at things, Tim Tebow will probably go down as the greatest college football player of all time. His time at Florida was something truly special as he literally did everything for his team on the field. But it was what we didn't see that truly separated him. His leadership was unsurpassed as he was just one of those guys who plays with his emotion and instincts, which, in most cases, got his team the win. What a shame he doesn't play in the NFL today.

Ray Lewis Gets Deep (Pause)

Ray Lewis is a master of pre-game, halftime and post-game speeches. And while former teammate Joe Flacco said some of the things he said didn't even make sense, what does he know? Defensive players always have to get jacked up for their team and Ray Lewis was the greatest at it. He dug deep into his teammate's souls to bring the best out of them and that got him a Super Bowl ring during his last year in the league.

Louisiana Coach Mark Hudspeth Goes HAM

Raging Cajuns head coach Mark Hudspeth had his team playing one of the biggest games in school history back in 2011 when they faced off against San Diego State at the SuperDome. If he weren't being so damn motivational, he could've caught a charge for grabbing and pushing his players like that. But it was all to amp them up as they got the win.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Donald Trump found guilty on all counts in historic NY hush money trial: Recap

In a verdict that shook the 2024 presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in his New York criminal hush money trial . He was convicted of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump is the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime.  

Prosecutors charged Trump with falsifying business records. They alleged Trump falsified the records to conceal unlawfully interfering in the 2016 presidential election through the $130,000 hush money payment, making the falsification charges felonies. The crime carries a penalty of up to four years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for July 11, but legal experts previously told USA TODAY the presumptive Republican nominee is likely to get only probation or a shorter sentence .

Trump called the outcome a "disgrace" and vowed to keep fighting his conviction.

The more-than six weeks-long trial against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee − which featured dramatic clashes between lawyers and witnesses, the judge and Trump − was the first criminal trial in U.S. history against a former president.

Trump's conviction marks another historic moment, with an uncertain impact on the 2024 presidential election. He is not disqualified from running for office and while polls have suggested a conviction would harm his prospects, prominent Republican supporters quickly rallied to his side.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Follow along with USA TODAY's live coverage here:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: 'I did my job'

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said he did not have any response to Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the prosecutor and his staff, but he praised his office.

“I did my job. Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. That’s exactly what we did here,” Bragg said. “I did my job. We did our job. Many voices out there. The only voice that matters is the voice of the jury and the jury has spoken.”

− Bart Jansen

Will Donald Trump go to jail?

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dodged a question about whether he would seek jail time when Trump is sentenced July 11.

“We will speak at that time,” Bragg said.

Bragg also declined to say whether he would oppose a request from Trump to remain free while he appeals the verdict. Bragg said prosecutors would respond formally at sentencing July 11.

“I’m going to let our words in court speak for themselves,” Bragg said.

Trump still faces criminal prosecution in these other three cases

With Donald Trump guilty on all charges in his Manhattan hush money trial, he still faces criminal charges in three other cases, including two for allegedly trying to illegally steal the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden.

In all, Trump faced a combined 88 criminal counts, including the 34 in Manhattan that he was convicted of Thursday by a jury. That leaves 54 counts between the three other cases, two of them in federal court that were brought by special counsel Jack Smith on behalf of the Justice Department.

One of those involves the retention of classified documents. The other federal case overseen by Smith accuses Trump of trying to subvert the 2020 election results.

The fourth case, in Fulton County, Ga., accuses Trump and 14 co-defendants − including some of his former lawyers, and administration aides − of trying to overturn Trump's loss in the Peach State in 2020.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all of the cases. None of them have trial dates scheduled, and legal experts largely concur that it's unlikely that any will begin before election day on Nov. 5, a likely rematch between Biden and Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee.

  −Josh Meyer

Watch DA Alvin Bragg's press conference live

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. will hold a press conference Thursday evening following the  conviction of Donald Trump.

The press conference is scheduled to be held at 6:30 p.m. ET at the 8th Floor Training Room in New York, the DA's office said in a release.

You can watch his comments live here.

− Anthony Robledo

What was Trump found guilty of?

Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Each count is tied to a different business record that prosecutors argued Trump was responsible for changing in order to either conceal or commit another crime .

Those records include 11 checks paid to former lawyer  Michael Cohen , 11 invoices from Cohen and 12 entries in Trump's ledgers.

The jury found that Trump authorized a plan to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment issued to  Stormy Daniels and spread the payments across 12 months disguised as legal expenses.

− Kinsey Crowley

'Trump is in a deep hole here': Former federal prosecutor reacts to verdict

Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor now practicing at Ford O’Brien Landy, said Trump could appeal whether the evidence was sufficient to convict him . But Trump can no longer challenge the credibility of witnesses such as former lawyer Michael Cohen and porn actress Stormy Daniels because the jury believed them, O’Brien said.

“Trump is in a deep hole here,” O’Brien said. “It’s not like he gets to start over. That’s not how the appeal system works.”

The jury weighed the evidence and decided that witnesses such as former lawyer Michael Cohen and porn actress Stormy Daniels were credible.

The counts each carry maximum sentences of four years, but legal experts say Judge Juan Merchan could give him probation or a shorter sentence as a first-time offender to a non-violent offense. The felony convictions don’t prohibit Trump from campaigning or potentially winning the White House.

“He could still easily wind up president of the United States,” O’Brien said. “There’s nothing that would prevent that from happening.”

Can Trump run for president now?

Yes, even after being convicted on felony counts, the Thursday verdict does not impact Donald Trump's ability to seek another term in the White House. The Constitution is pretty clear − here are the qualifications to serve as president.

• Be a natural-born citizen of the U.S.
• Have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years
• Be at least 35 years old

− Marina Pitofsky

What happens to Trump now? Trump sentencing date

Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled Trump's sentencing for July 11, and Trump is out free until then.

Because this is Trump's first felony offense, his sentence is likely to be as light as probation or home confinement. If he does receive a sentence , it would probably be less than a year.

Trump is likely to appeal the conviction. That would push any jailtime until after the election.

− Kinsey Crowley  

Who were the key witnesses in Donald Trump's historic trial

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was a significant witness testifying that he submitted invoices for “legal expenses” that Trump knew were to reimburse him for paying $130,000 to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. But Trump lawyer Todd Blanche accused Cohen of lying on the stand when he testified he notified Trump about the payment to Daniels. In closing arguments, Blanche called Cohenthe “MVP of liars” and “the embodiment of reasonable doubt.” 

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, described the alleged sexual encounter in enough detail that Merchan questioned why defense lawyers didn’t object more to block her testimony. Trump has repeatedly denied he had sex with Daniels and Blanche argued the payment “started out as an extortion” whether the allegation was true or not. 

David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., which owned the National Enquirer, said he agreed in a meeting with Trump and Cohen in August 2015 to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s presidential campaign to buy negative stories about the candidate and never publish them. 

Pecker acknowledged paying former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story and then refusing to pay for Daniels because Trump hadn’t reimbursed him. Cohen provided a recording , which prosecutor Joshua Steinglass called “jaw-dropping,” of Trump mentioning the $150,000 figure. 

Can Trump go to prison?

Yes. Each felony count of falsifying business records − elevated to a felony because prosecutors proved their purpose was to commit or conceal another crime − carries a maximum sentence of four years. However, New York caps such sentencing the type of felonies Trump faced – Class E felonies –  at 20 years .

But given Trump doesn't have a criminal record and wasn't convicted of a violent crime, such a high sentence is very unlikely, according to legal experts. Several spoke to USA TODAY ahead of the trial about what could happen if Trump were convicted. Nearly all predicted that, if convicted, Trump would get a sentence ranging from just probation to up to four years in prison, and likely falling within the lower end of that range.

− Aysha Bagchi

Donald Trump reacts to guilty verdict

Donald Trump quickly reacted to the jury's decision finding him guilty on all 34 criminal counts.

“This is just a disgrace,” Trump told reporters in the hallway outside the courtroom. “We didn’t do anything wrong. I’m an innocent man.”

Trump ignored shouted questions about whether he would drop out of the presidential campaign.

“This is long from over,” Trump said. “We’ll keep fighting. We’ll fight to the end and we’ll win.”

People surrounding courthouse react

Outside the courthouse, anti-Trump demonstrators cheered and drivers honked their horns as news of the guilty verdicts spread. “Guilty!” several people shouted out.

− David Jackson

Jury reaches a verdict

The jury has reached a verdict in former President Donald Trump 's New York criminal hush money trial , which centers on allegations that he falsified business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Jurors confirmed that they had reached a verdict in a note signed by the foreperson at 4:20 p.m. local time. Jurors have requested an extra 30 minutes to fill out forms and take other steps, according to Judge Juan Merchan .

The former president, his attorneys, prosecutors reporters and others were waiting in near silence in the courtroom as the jury entered the courtroom.

A drama-filled trial  

The six-week trial featured dramatic clashes between lawyers and witnesses, the judge and Trump.  

The testimony included tense moments, such as defense lawyer Todd Blanche accusing Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen , of lying on the stand and former Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks breaking into tears . 

Meanwhile, Judge Juan Merchan threatened to jail Trump if he continued to violate a gag order against talking about witnesses participating in the case. Merchan also scolded Blanche for an “outrageous” statement in closing arguments that the jury shouldn’t “send someone to prison” based on Cohen’s testimony. 

A flock of Republican surrogates showed up to support Trump, and one conspiracy theorist set himself on fire outside the courthouse. 

Correction: A previous version of this story quoted Trump as saying "this is far from over."

Student says school withheld his diploma after he ‘went off-script’ during graduation speech

ALEXANDRIA, Ky. ( WXIX /Gray News) - A recent graduate in Kentucky says his high school withheld his diploma for days after he went off-script while giving a speech during a graduation ceremony.

Micah Price said he ultimately received his diploma, but it was five days after the ceremony was held.

According to Price, he submitted eight drafts of his speech to the school and was told to take out portions that focused heavily on religion.

Price said he took parts out of the final draft, but when the opportunity presented, he “went off-script” while giving the commencement speech.

One of his goals, since fifth grade, was to deliver a speech on his graduation day. But he said he also wanted to honor God.

“I prayed about it a lot,” Price said.

In eighth grade, he became a devoted Baptist.

“My lord and savior is your answer,” Price said in his speech. “He will give you the truth, the way, and the light. I must give the honor, the praise, and the glory to Jesus Christ.”

Price said he went to get the envelope with his diploma after the ceremony when a principal tapped him on the shoulder and told him he would have to talk to the school board.

“I knew it was going to be held,” Price said. “Before you do anything they tell us if you go up there and do a cartwheel or something stupid, it will get your diploma held.”

Despite knowing the consequences, Price said he had to speak from the heart.

“I simply cannot hold back what Christ has done in my life,” Price said. “He’s everything to me.”

Price said he’s joining the Air Force in July. He said the controversy over his speech and his diploma has him considering ministry work.

Representatives with the Campbell County Local School District did not immediately comment regarding the situation.

“I went against the rules. It’s my fault. I should be in trouble. I never wanted to bring hate to them or tear down the school,” Price said.

Copyright 2024 WXIX via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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