They say that "April showers bring May flowers." Do you know what else May brings? Graduations. It's officially graduation season around the country, and there's a greater than average chance that there will be lots of blog posts, social media "likes", and YouTube videos about some celebrity who delivered an excellent commencement speech. High school graduates from around the country will be receiving a copy of the Dr. Seuss book, Oh, The Places You'll Go! (it's a classic!).
Commencement speeches are supposed to inspire, motivate, encourage, and celebrate, all at the same time. Once the speech is done, we are effectively telling the graduates that they are ready for the world! Some speeches are certainly better than others. Some will be talked about for years to come (see below), while others will be forgotten in a few years. For example, I can't remember who gave my high school and college commencement speeches or even what they said, but admittedly that was a long, long time ago.
I recently conducted a quick Internet search for greatest commencement speeches. There are several that consistently appear on lists of the greatest commencement speeches of all-time, and I have to admit that most of them are very good. Here are a few of the more well-known speeches (in no particular order):
David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College, 2005 ("This Is Water")
There are a few commencement speeches that haven't appeared on any of these lists that I still feel are worth a view. For example, the Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Peyton Manning delivered a great speech at the Valedictory Exercises at the University of Virginia in 2014. During this speech, Manning famously told the graduates, "When you are chided for your naïveté, and you will be, remind your critics that an amateur built the ark, experts built the Titanic." He also spent the first five minutes or so throwing footballs to randomly selected graduates!
Tennis star Roger Federer delivered an inspirational speech at Dartmouth College in 2024. He made several key points. First, "Effortless is a myth." Federer said, "People would say my play was effortless. Most of the time, they meant it as a compliment... But it used to frustrate me when they would say, He barely broke a sweat!" Or Is he even trying? The truth is, I had to work very hard... to make it look easy...I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents."
Second, "It's only a point." He said, "You can work harder than you thought possible... and still lose. I have...In tennis, perfection is impossible... In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for all of you. What percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches? Only 54 percent...Here’s why I am telling you this. When you’re playing a point, it is the most important thing in the world. But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial, because it frees you to fully commit to the next point, and the next one after that, with intensity, clarity and focus."
Third, "life is bigger than a court." He then described his career and everything that he was able to do and every place that he was able to visit because of tennis. He then said, "Tennis has given me so many memories. But my off-court experiences are the ones I carry forward just as much. The places I’ve gotten to travel, the platform that lets me give back, and, most of all, the people I’ve met along the way."
I've mentioned a few other commencement speeches in some of my older blog posts, all of which are also worth a view:
William McRaven at University of Texas, 2014 (see my post, "If you want to change the world, don't ever, ever ring the bell!")
Abby Wambach at Barnard College, 2018 (see my post, "We are the wolves!")
Bryan Dyson at Georgia Tech University, 1991 (see my post, "The Real Thing")
I can't wait to see what Graduation Season 2025 has in store. I am confident that the themes from at least a few commencement speeches from this season will find their way into this blog! Congratulations to all the graduates out there - you are ready for the world!
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