Steelers coach Mike Tomlin speaks at W&M graduation

The Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Tomlin tells grads about the future "game."

By SHAWN DAY | 247-4816

May 12, 2008

WILLIAMSBURG - Usually, his game-day speech is directed to a locker room packed with professional athletes ready to burst onto a football field.

But on this Sunday, Mike Tomlin gave a different kind of speech. There were no NFL players, no opposing teams outside and no locker rooms.

And yet, the similarities were clear, said Tomlin, head coach of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers and a 1995 graduate of the College of William and Mary.

The class of 2008 represents a team, he said, and outside the doors of William and Mary Hall "awaits the game of life."

Tomlin — a Peninsula native — praised William and Mary's newest graduates for their efforts to succeed, and he called on them to live life by dreaming big, inspiring others and persevering through adversity.

"Whatever it is your heart desires you to pursue, your experience here has sharpened your sword for battle," Tomlin told the thousands of people packed into the arena.

"This game of life is about sustaining, rebounding, responding. The first five minutes of the game does not decide the outcome."

The Mother's Day commencement drew more than 8,000 to William and Mary Hall, where 1,756 undergraduate and graduate degrees were conferred. The ceremony also included a heartfelt farewell from Sam Sadler, longtime vice president for student affairs who retires next month — after working for four decades at the university.

Michael Powell, the school's rector, announced during the event that he and other board members decided that the campus's University Center will be renamed Sadler Center, recognizing Sadler's contributions to the university.

The announcement stunned Sadler. "It's pretty mind-boggling to have a building with my name on it," he said after the ceremony.

Members of the class of 2008 left campus Sunday having known three university presidents during their four years at William and Mary. Interim President W. Taylor Reveley III acknowledged that turnover briefly as he closed the ceremony, and he thanked them for having "pulled together remarkably for the good of William and Mary."

"This has been marvelous to watch," he said. "It's been great for the morale of the interim president."

Reveley was named interim president in February, after Gene Nichol abruptly resigned after 21/2 years at the helm. Nichol, whose tenure was marked by controversy, had replaced Timothy J. Sullivan, who left in 2005.