Michael S. Greco
Immediate Past President, American Bar Association
Commencement Address
Hinsdale Central High School – Class of 2007
Hinsdale, Illinois
May 31, 2007
Thank you, Lauren [Pyle], for your kind introduction. Thanks, also, for your outstanding
leadership as president of the Senior Class.
I thank the Board of Education, Administration and Faculty for inviting me to speak this
evening. Please join me in congratulating Kevin Pobst on his recent appointment by the Board
of Education as Principal of Hinsdale Central High School. The school is in excellent hands.
Members of the Class of 2007, I am very pleased to be here with you, your families and
friends to celebrate this wonderful and memorable event – the successful completion of your
secondary school education at one of our nation’s finest high schools.
Being here is a coming home for me. Adding greatly to my pleasure is the fact that my
niece, Alex Greco, is in the graduating class.
As I look at you, six hundred and seventeen proud graduates sitting on this football field,
and the several thousand family members and friends sitting in the stands this beautiful
evening, I am mindful that on the precise spot where I am making these remarks I engaged in a
different activity each fall during 1958-1960 -- kicking after-touchdown points and field goals as
a member of three Hinsdale championship football teams. I have many fond memories of longago team events that happened on this field, as I’m sure you also do of your years here.
I want to begin by telling you a story about a young boy.
Fifty-seven years ago a seven-year old boy and his family crossed the Atlantic Ocean by
boat from the port at Naples, Italy, to New York Harbor to begin life in America. At dawn on the
day that the boat was to reach New York, the boy was already on deck, watching the sun rising,
excitedly anticipating his first sight of the Statue of Liberty. By the time the boat reached harbor,
and the statue came into view, the eager boy had been joined on deck by his family and scores
of others.
The boy never forgot his first sight of that majestic statue, nor the feelings that
raced through him at that moment, nor his first step on America’s soil. He has deeply cherished
the many opportunities for education, growth and freedom that this wonderful country has
afforded him.
I was that young boy.
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My journey to this podium has covered many miles.
It began in November 1942 in a small, poor village in southern Italy, then to Chicago in
October 1950, my mother’s birthplace, here to Hinsdale in 1952 where I grew up, had a
wonderful childhood and excellent education, and then to Princeton University on an academic
scholarship. After graduating from Princeton in 1965 I was a high school English teacher for
several very enjoyable years, and then went to Boston for my legal education, where I have
worked and lived ever since.
I became a lawyer 35 years ago and last year I had the great honor of serving as
president of the 413,000 member American Bar Association, the voice of the legal profession in
the US. I am the first president of Italian heritage in the ABA’s 130-year history, and the first to
be born outside the United States.
Why do I tell you these things? Because, from personal experience, I know that America
derives its strength from the great diversity and talents of all who live in this great country. From
personal experience, I know how important it is that all young people – no matter the color of
their skin or gender, or their religious, economic or social background – be afforded the
opportunity to receive an education, to work hard, develop their abilities, and contribute to this
great nation.
I accepted the invitation to address you this evening to share with you what it has meant
to me to have grown up and been educated in Hinsdale, and the values that were ingrained in
me here and that have served me well during the 46 years since that long-ago evening in 1961
when I sat where you are now sitting.
I recall arguing my first “legal” case – at the age of nine – in Hinsdale when, one week
after we had moved into our house on Spring Road in 1952, I accompanied my father, who did
not then speak English, to the Town Hall to explain that our house needed to be connected to
the Town’s water line. The Town Manager, Mr. Agrimonte, whose daughter Jean would later
become a good friend, demonstrated the understanding and caring that has typified this town –
the water line was connected the next day.
My fourth grade teacher at Monroe Elementary School, Alice Gross (later Glass, after
her marriage to George Glass), has had a lasting influence on my life from the time we first met
in the fall of 1952. I was new to Hinsdale, and very anxious. She took me under her wing that
year, taught me to speak and write, and play hand ball, and helped give me confidence to
succeed. Mrs. Glass was an outstanding teacher but, equally important, she was a caring
person. She was respectful of her students, she had a wonderful and playful sense of humor,
and she made learning the joy that it should be.
In 1962, ten years after I had had her as a teacher, Mrs. Glass and her husband, then
raising their four daughters in Shelbyville, Indiana, saw my name in the Sports Section of the
Sunday New York Times in an article about the Princeton football team winning its game the
day before, and she wrote me a letter. Our friendship spanned fifty years, until her death in
2002. During those years in many wonderful letters that I still have, she constantly expressed
encouragement, support, and pride in my accomplishments and in those of my own children.
When I think about Alice Glass and her commitment to her students, I am reminded of
two important responsibilities that all of us share as Americans: to welcome newcomers to our
country, and to help people in need. I am also reminded of the tradition of public service that
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has defined both the legal profession and the teaching profession from the beginning of this
nation. Alice Glass’s efforts as an educator and the efforts of lawyers have something important
in common, something that gives true meaning to what teachers and lawyers strive to do every
day: to make the world a better place for children and give them a fair chance in life.
There is no higher calling than to serve society as a teacher or lawyer.
It gave me enormous pleasure that Alice’s husband, George, now a retired lawyer, and
Kathrine, the eldest of their four daughters and herself now a college professor, sat with my
family when I was inducted in Chicago as president of the American Bar Association at its
Annual Meeting in August 2005.
Teachers in Hinsdale’s junior high school and high school also were instrumental in
helping me to develop skills and talents. But above all, my teachers helped me begin to
develop the principles and values that define who I am, that have guided my choices and
actions throughout my life, and that helped shape the legal and social initiatives I undertook last
year as president of the American Bar Association on behalf of the American people and the
legal profession -- to protect the freedoms and principles we cherish in America.
When I spoke as one of the five 2006 inductees at the HCHS Hall of Fame Dinner last
October I mentioned one of the great teachers I have been fortunate to have in my life – John
Ben Nelson – who taught me US History my junior year in high school in 1959, and who would
go on to teach at Hinsdale High School for five decades.
Imagine my thrill this afternoon visiting and talking with Mr. Nelson and his wife Mary at
their house in LaGrange. It had been 47 years since we had last seen each other. As we
reminisced, many fond memories of this fine man and teacher, of other wonderful teachers, of
my Hinsdale classmates and friends, of this school, and of this town came to mind.
I told Mr. Nelson that the lessons I learned in his classroom about treating people fairly
and humanely, and other important values that I learned in his class, have stayed with me all my
life. I am indebted to Mr. Nelson, to other excellent teachers I had here in Hinsdale, and to the
people of this town in ways that I will never be able fully to repay.
Principal Pobst has told me about some of your admirable achievements. I am very
pleased with your academic successes – you were second in the state in ACT scores and took
the third most Advanced Placement tests in the state, more than any other graduating class in
the history of Hinsdale Central! You and your families should be proud.
As a former three-sport athlete, I know the importance of sports in the lives of young
people, and I congratulate you on another successful year, especially the tennis, golf, cross
country and lacrosse teams, which all earned state honors.
What really impresses me most about your class, though, is your demonstrated
commitment to public service. You understand the responsibility of helping people in need, and
nothing could be more important. Your efforts to raise money for charity – more than any other
class at Hinsdale – to send truckloads of supplies to the hurricane victims in New Orleans, and
to reduce bullying through the “Breaking Down the Walls” program, are truly impressive. Well
done!
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Before I conclude these remarks I have some words of advice for you. It is advice that I
have tried to follow during my life.
Work Hard: There is just no substitute for hard work. You already have learned the
importance of hard work by getting this far. Keep it up, because this evening is a beginning, not
an ending.
Think independently: The best teachers I had at Hinsdale, college and law school – the
ones who irritated me so much because they pushed me to the limit of my abilities, because
they made me work harder than seemed fair, and because they insisted that I think for myself
and always think critically -- are the only teachers whose names I remember today, with
gratitude, half a century after their torment. In one of your physics classrooms I saw a poster of
Albert Einstein, beneath which appear the words, “Even Einstein asked questions.” You get the
idea.
Protect your integrity: Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of
the United States, has noted that the decisions we make, what we do and how we justify or
explain our choices, define who we are, and that we can never escape our conscience for a
failure to honor our own standards of right and wrong. Personal integrity is your most important,
and also most fragile, possession. Guard it as though your life depends on it, because it does.
Pursue Your Dreams: My former law partner and good friend Reginald C. Lindsay, an
outstanding lawyer who grew up in the segregated south of the 50’s and 60’s, was appointed
fifteen years ago by the President of the United States as a federal judge in Boston. At his
induction ceremony Judge Lindsay quoted Dr. Benjamin Mays, who was President of
Morehouse College in Atlanta for almost 30 years, and had Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Judge Lindsay as students. Dr. Mays was an inspirational teacher and leader. He told his
students:
The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having
no goal to reach. It is not calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not
to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to
have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to
have no stars to reach. Not failure, but low aim, is sin.
It’s okay if you are not yet sure what you want to do with the rest of your life, but once
you have it figured out, aim high, and pursue your goals with every ounce of your energy. Don’t
be held back by nay-sayers. Have courage to achieve your dreams.
I commend to you the words of Robert F. Kennedy, words which have helped guide me -- "Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream of things that never were and say
why not?"
Care for fellow human beings: I became a lawyer primarily because it gave me the
opportunity to help people, to solve problems, and to help improve society.
As a boy growing up here in town, I realized that many of our town’s leaders were
lawyers engaged in public service. In addition to their day positions in law offices, these men
and women also found time to serve as elected officials, on town boards and boards of nonprofit groups, as civic leaders and good neighbors. They volunteered their time and skills to help
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people and to improve our town for everyone. I came to understand that these lawyers, many of
them parents of my friends, were what is called the “Lawyer as Public Citizen.”
You don’t have to be a lawyer to be a “Public Citizen.” Whatever your career or calling
will be -- people will come to you for help. And many of them will be without financial means.
Help those people. Protect them. That is what a good citizen, a public citizen, does.
I end with this.
You owe your teachers, families and friends great thanks for all the support they have
given you. Never forget what they have done for you. Do the same for others.
If there is one you thing you might remember from hearing briefly about my life, I hope it
is this: that you will build the rest of your life on the solid foundation of hard work and public
service that you have begun here at Hinsdale.
You should be proud of what you have accomplished so far, but now get ready for what
lies ahead. Hinsdale has prepared you well for the next phase of your life, as it prepared me
half a century ago.
The world and its joys and challenges await you. Go meet them.
You have my congratulations, and my very best wishes.
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