

			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                             April 13, 1994     

	     
		       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
	      AT DINNER FOR 1994 U.S WINTER OLYMPIC TEAM

			The Washington Hilton
			  Washington, D. C.    
	     

8:10 P.M. EDT


	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much.  Thank you very much, 
Mr. Vice President and Dr. Walker and -- what am I supposed to call 
Hillary in public? -- (laughter) -- Madame First Lady.
	     
	     You know, one of the things these Olympians learn is a 
whole lot of discipline and, along with that, sort of good conduct 
and good matters.  But I think we're about to test it -- they've 
already heard all of us give one set of speeches today, and now 
they're having to sit through a second, or stand through a second, as 
the case may be.  It was wonderful for us to have all of them at the 
White House today.  And I want to thank them for coming, for giving 
all of us who work in the White House a big thrill at having the 
opportunity to meet them and congratulate them and express our great 
pride in their achievements.
	     
	     One potentially unfortunate thing occurred at the White 
House today.  Several of them invited me to jog in the morning.  
(Laughter.)  So there's a whole bunch of them coming and, now that 
I've announced it, doubtless more will come as well.  And so I'm 
going to have to go home early and get some extra sleep tonight.  The 
Vice President would come, too -- and he's a better runner than I am 
-- but he's on his way to Marrakesh tonight.  He's really taking a 
marathon -- going to the meeting which will finalize the 
understanding among all of our nations for a new worldwide trade 
agreement; and reminding the other countries that they promised that 
the next time we make a worldwide trade agreement, it will be a green 
round -- one devoted to protecting the global environment, and 
proving that that, too, can be good for our common economic destiny.  
So I thank him for that.  (Applause.)
	     
	     A few moments before he ran and won the 100 meter final 
and captured the gold medal in an Olympics a long time ago, one of 
the heroes of my youth, Jesse Owens, said, "a lifetime of training 
for just ten seconds."  Dr. Walker and I were talking out here before 
he came out to visit one more time and stand with the Olympians, and 
we were speculating about what the longest Winter Olympic event is -- 
maybe the cross-country skiing, maybe the biathlon.  But even the 
longest one is just the flash of an eye compared to all the training.  
Think of how many of these young athletes have worked their lifetimes 
to compete for a minute -- sometimes slightly less, sometimes 
slightly more; a long event, an exhausting event, and some of these 
counted as two or three or four minutes.  But really, it isn't a 
lifetime of effort for ten seconds or two minutes or two hours, it's 
a lifetime of effort for a lifetime of rewards.
	     
	     The reward is knowing that you have done your best with 
your God-given abilities.  The reward of knowing you have lived a 
good life and stand out as a good model.  I asked all these young 
people today to continue to visit schools and see the children of 
America, as they did today.  So many of our children today don't have 
parents or coaches or teachers who can get them up early in the 
morning, encourage them to great heights, provide the opportunities 
that so many of the rest of us take for granted.
	     
	     And yet I think these young Olympians, simply by talking 
to disadvantaged kids who may have no hope, who may have no 
opportunity in their own mind, who may not even be able to imagine 
what it is like to make a commitment for a year -- much less five or 
ten years or 20 years -- the incredible impact that they can have on 
the young people of America is something that we must never 
underestimate, and something that I hope and pray they will never 
underestimate.
	     
	     I'd also like to say to echo what the Vice President 
said that we are doing our best through the President's Council on 
Sports and Physical Fitness to try to spread opportunities for 
participating in athletics to all of our people.  And I have to tell 
you that one of the real tragedies of the economic hardships our 
country endured in the 1980s is that many of our schools and many of 
our cities cut back on recreational facilities.  Here in the nation's 
capital, I am told that there only three functioning ball parks that 
are open to kids who want to start teams.  We have kids growing up on 
streets in America today who get all the way through their teen years 
without ever holding a baseball bat in their hand or having a mitt on 
their hand.  We have whole cities where there are no Olympic-sized 
swimming pools for children to swim in.
	     
	     And so the second thing I ask of you all is to try to 
remind the city fathers and the state officials and the federal 
officials, too, that body and mind go hand in hand; and we've got to 
bring recreational opportunities back to kids.  We have to give them 
the spirit of teamwork and possibility even though some can never be 
Olympic athletes.
	     
	     And finally, let me remind you that when the Olympics 
started -- I mean really started -- a long time ago, it gave all the 
warring Greek city states an excuse to quit fighting with one another 
and find a way to compete in peace and harmony and to forge bonds of 
understanding among people who literally were at war one with the 
other.  We saw that in a gripping way in these Winter Olympics when 
the courageous Olympians from Bosnia somehow made their way to 
Lillehammer.  (Applause.)
	     
	     And so I ask all of you who have had the experience of 
the Olympics always to be emissary for a decent and humane set of 
relations among the people of the world.  Most of what people are 
fighting for in this old world today -- with the end of the Cold War 
-- is based on ancient hatreds, not present rational divisions, not 
principled arguments over differences in a way of life, but old-
fashioned bigotry that somehow they can't quite overcome.  The spirit 
of the Olympics can help that, and all of you can embody that for the 
rest of your lives.
	     
	     Somehow I think that all of these words that we've just 
said may not be quite registering on all the athletes because they've 
been through so much this year.  Robert Frost once said about the 
present, "It is too much for the senses, too crowded, too confusing, 
too present to imagine."  But soon the present will be past, and all 
the athletes will fully comprehend, with the benefit of time, the 
magnitude of their achievement in making our Olympic team and what 
they mean in their own lives and to the lives of their friends and 
families and what they can mean to lives of so many millions of 
others in America.
	     
	     The Olympic moment may be over, but their lifetime of 
training will bring a lifetime of benefits to themselves and to all 
the rest of us as well.
	     
	     Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

				 END8:18 P.M. EDT

