On Saturday, Oct. 1, the ASU Athletic Heritage Committee
inducted 10 new members into its prestigious Hall of Fame.
The 2011 class included student-athletes Adam Archuleta (Football), Mike
Benjamin (Baseball), Lucy Casarez (Softball), Kurt Nimphius (Men's Basketball),
Grace Park (Women's Golf), Townsend Saunders (Wrestling), Marvel Smith
(Football), Stacey Tullock (Soccer), Molly Tuter (Women's Basketball) and
Fernando Vina (Baseball).
The group was honored at halftime of the Oregon State football game that night.
On Friday evening, September 30, the inductees were formally inducted into the
Hall in a ceremony at Wells Fargo Arena. The two football inductees - Adam
Archuleta and Marvel Smith - gave speeches that were both heartfelt and moving.
Here is a transcript of those speeches.
Adam Archuleta LB 1997-2000
"First
and foremost I want to thank Don Bocchi, the heritage committee for nominating
me, selecting me and inducting me, along with all of these other great athletes
into the ASU Sports Hall of Fame. This is a special, special award for me and a
special night. I've had a lot of different awards and accolades in my career
but this is going to go down as one of the best. My story has been told
countless times, I'm sure everybody has heard some version of it. Ever since I
was a little kid and I was sitting on that couch with my dad watching that
football game I knew what I wanted to do with my life. But even though I knew
what the picture looked like, the end result, there were many details, many
pieces of the puzzle that are missing. Tonight I want to tell the story of
those pieces because even though this is a great individual honor, for myself
and everybody else, it couldn't have happened without the supporting cast.
Everybody that came into my life at the perfect moment in order to complete
that picture.
I
first want to thank my family. My mom, my dad, and my sister for raising me in
a family where no dream was impossible, nothing was unreachable. You provided
the example that hard work, determination, no handouts, that everything that we
wanted to achieve we had to go out and fight for it, that it wasn't going to
come easy. I want to thank you for that. I want to say thank you to my mom for
every single Friday and Saturday during my senior year in high school for
making me cut out those press clippings, putting together my highlight tape and
making painful call after painful call to college coaches across the country
explaining to them that I was ready, willing and able to accept a scholarship
to their school. But the call always ended up the exact same way, 'you know
what son its probably best if you look at you other options.' There weren't any
other options, but if it wasn't for my mom making me do that I would have never
gotten the call from Vincent D'Aliesio, the
graduate assistant who was at ASU, who called me and said he saw my tape and
had given it to the linebacker coach Lyle Setencich and they wanted me to come
in to try to convince me that playing linebacker at 190 pounds was the route
for me, not junior college. So, I came here for that meeting very skeptical. We
walked into the defensive staff room, he didn't say much but he put on a tape
and on that tape I saw a linebacker. A 5'11", 200-pound linebacker who was
running around making play after play, lighting people up. When the tape was
over he looked at me and said, 'Do you think you can do that?' I said of
course. Of course that linebacker was Pat Tillman. Pat was the biggest reason
why I came to ASU because he showed me that not only could a 5'11", 200 pound
linebacker play football in the Pac-10, he could do a damn good job doing it.
So, I want to thank Vince D'Aliesio for finding me, Lyle Setencich for seeing something in me that no other coach could see and Pat
Tillman for the example, for laying down those footsteps for me to walk in.
I
want to thank my coaching staff at ASU, especially Phil Snow, my defensive
coordinator, and Johnny Barr, my linebacker coach, for not only teaching me how
to play the game, but for being hard on me, not giving me anything; not letting
me take anything for granted, for benching me after my sophomore year after I
couldn't cut it. I learned a lot from those coaches. I want to give a special
thanks to the late Bruce Snyder, who
quite honestly I didn't appreciate
as much until after I had left, after I had seen great coaches, leaders, men,
that I began to appreciate what kind of impact Coach Snyder had on me. The way
he led, the way he carried himself, the way he spoke whether it be one on one
or in front of a thousand people, when he said something you listened. There
aren't many men that are cut from the same cloth as Coach Snyder and I
appreciate him.
I
want to thank my longtime trainer Jay Schroeder, who out of everybody was the toughest. I still remember that first
meeting when we met, it wasn't really a meeting. It was actually about a
two-and-a-half-hour verbal assault on my self-confidence. I remembered two
phrases: the first one, 'I trained sophomores in Texas that would destroy you'
and the second one, which was a little bit more important, 'the desire to
prepare to succeed is more important than the desire to succeed.' That's what
it is all about. That's what separates greatness from mediocrity. That's what
the difference between success and failure is, and we lived that every single
day in that gym. He made me prove to him and everybody else that what I said I
wanted, I was willing to do all the work to get there. He was tough and I
appreciate year after year him being tough on me.
Football
has been my life. I've done a lot, I've seen a lot, because of this game, I've
accomplished a lot and although they weren't around during my football career,
I want to say thank you to my beautiful wife and amazing son. Even though I had
the time of my life playing football, it doesn't compare to the feeling I get
and the gratification for being apart of this family and seeing the both of
you. People ask me all the time, is Jett going to follow in his dad's
footsteps, and this is my answer. I hope that he lives a blessed life, a life
with great parents who provide the environment for him to dream, succeed and
become inspired. I hope he has a blessed life where people come into his life
at the perfect time to mentor him, to guide him and to be tough on him; to
teach him that he has to work for everything, nothing is going to be handed to
him. Most importantly, I hope that he has the chance someday to stand at a base
of a mountain where the top is so high that he can't see the top and instead of
turning around and looking for a smaller mountain to hop over, he takes that
step knowing that it's not going to happen the next day, but someday he's going
to reach that top. And when he does, just like his dad did, he looks back at
his journey, all of the peaks and valleys, and he appreciates that more than
the actual top of the mountain. That's what it's all about for me and that's
what ASU represents for me was my journey. The journey is what makes all of us
who we are. It's not the result, it's not the awards, it's not the accolades,
it's the journey that forges us and builds us and our character.
That's
going to be about it as far as thank yous. I know there are so many more people
out there, but because of time I wanted to keep it to the people who are pretty
specific to my success and my story here at ASU. I want to thank all of my
teammates that I played with, everybody that busted their butt to go out there
on Saturday's with a common goal and win. You built those memories with me. To
all those coaches that have been huge influences on my life. I want to thank
everybody here, all the fans. Believe me, I listen when I am on the field of
battle and I hear you cheer. Fans are so important, so important to us, that's
why we're out there, so thank you for continuing to support Sun Devil
Athletics. Everybody who has supported myself and everybody that is here on
this stage tonight, you are as important as everybody. Congratulations to
everybody sitting behind me and God Bless."
Marvel Smith OL 1997-1999
"I'd like to start by thanking God. I know I would
not have been able to achieve anything without His blessings. I'd like to thank
the ASU Hall of Fame Committee, to even be considered for an honor like this is
amazing to me. I'm sorry I always have a hard time speaking in front of big
groups. When we were upstairs on the fifth floor, it didn't seem like there
were this many people. There were a lot of people that were so instrumental in
me being able to achieve everything that I was. I'd like to thank my parents,
my dad unfortunately passed last year, he is unable to be here and my mom is
sick as well, so she is unable to be here, but I would not be standing here
before you guys if it weren't for them. My mom affected me in so many ways in
my life and one statement that she told me has stuck with me and driven
everything I have done so far to this point. I grew up in Oakland, Calif. It
was really rough and I got caught up in a lot of things I probably shouldn't
have and she made it a point to let me know that I would never become anything
if I continued down that same road and that has affected everything that I have
done, still to this day. I always fall back to that statement whenever I feel
like anything is hard or when people doubted me throughout my whole life. There
were always doubters and I always felt like I had to prove people wrong. I grew
up really rough and I was essentially raised by my older brothers, because my
dad left when I was eight and he was never there. My older brother James was my
father figure. He taught me everything that I needed at a young age and I feel
like I owe a whole lot to him and all my brothers and sisters in general.
When
I was 12 years old, it was a blessing, no doubt about it, that through the Big
Brothers Big Sisters organization I met my mentor, Frank Paré. I can't even mention how many times he has helped me
through so many tough obstacles, just making tough decisions or helping me to
see where I screwed up. He gave me a better perspective. He was the first
person I met at that age that helped me to be able to see that coming from my
environment you could be successful outside of it being illegal. He will always
be a huge part of my life and I'm truly grateful for everything he's done and
will do. I'd definitely like to thank my lovely wife, Kelly. She's been there
for me through my whole career, through everything, all the ups and downs. I
couldn't imagine being successful at anything without her having my back like
she has and my two young kids who make life what it is every single day. I want
to thank my in-laws for coming out tonight, my sister-in-law and my niece. My
father-in-law and I have a special relationship. He didn't miss one home game
that I ever had in my professional career and to have that type of support is
unmatched. I've never had anything like that at any level in my playing career
at all. Thank you very much for all of your support on every single game,
regardless of whether I had...I don't want to say I'm conceded, but I didn't
really have too many bad games.
Playing
at ASU was a life changing experience, no doubt about it. Coach Bruce Snyder, I
wish he was here to be able to see us, me and Adam [Archuleta]. He had such an
impact on my life and I didn't realize it at the time until I was gone from
here. He had a motto, 'one at a time' and that was huge in my life. Coming from Oakland, I wanted
everything right then, I didn't know how to work to get anything. As small as
'one at a time' was, I took it to heart in every single thing that I did then
and now. It helped me build focus and take things one at a time, whether or not
it was a certain game, a certain player. I was able to develop game plans for
each individual or each individual team on the field, and it helped me off the
field tremendously to be able to calm down and focus on exactly what I had to
do. Which is another reason why I was so amazed when Don [Bocchi] gave me a call asking me if I would accept being
inducted into the ASU Hall of Fame. It blew my mind; I was thinking he called
the wrong person. I've had achievements in my career, but for my playing career
I almost felt like I wasn't achieving anything. I made the Pro Bowl, the Super
Bowl and just to get drafted was a dream of mine, but I knew exactly what I had
to do to achieve those things. So when I did it, I didn't feel like I
accomplished something because I knew all I had to do was the right things the
right way and this would come to me. To be recognized with such an honor like
this, it is still hard for me to put in perspective because this obviously
means I've achieved something. My whole time, the only thing I really felt like
I had achieved was making it out of a situation where you are definitely not
dealt cards to be successful at anything.
Being
here at ASU, I played with some of the best guys and had the most fun of my
career playing at ASU. It was family out there. To be able to be on the field
with J.R. Redmond, Ché Britton,
a player like Adam [Archuleta], across the
board the offensive line I played with; all five of us played in the NFL and
started on whatever team we were on. It was amazing to be able to play with
those guys and I would not have been the player on or off the field without
them in my life. I never reflected back on the past, ever, but with this
induction I was forced to reflect on how I got here and all the things I went
through. I was blessed to have the right people around me at the right time to
help me make the right decisions. All of you guys will always be a big part of
my life. Professionally, it was up and down so much, it was a job more so than
having fun like it was in college. From that, I think I'll have one of the best
friends that I got from that, Kendall Simmons, one of my former linemates and
his lovely wife were able to make it out. I appreciate you guys being here.
Lastly,
I was surprised when we were walking down here and saw Ariko Iso. She was so
instrumental in my time in Pittsburgh because I had injuries and she was the
one that worked with me through it. She's currently the head trainer at Oregon
State and it's just lucky for her to be here this weekend. She was so
instrumental in keeping me on the field because I had so many different
injuries and we were one-on-one early in the morning before anyone was even
there trying to work, just to be able to get me healthy enough to be able to
play that week and then the following week; every single week. It was 6 a.m.
Riko's abs of steel or something. I want to thank everybody. This is definitely
an honor I will cherish forever. Thank you and congratulations to all the other
inductees."
