>> TIM CLINTON: Good morning, Liberty! I'm Tim Clinton, and it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure for me to introduce to you
our special guest this morning. Dr. James Dobson is without question one of,
if not the, leading authority on the family. He's also been one of the most powerful influences
on and advocates for modern day Christianity. Anybody ever heard of an organization named
Focus on the Family? Maybe Adventures in Odyssey? He's now the founder and president of Family
Talk; it's a non-profit organization that produces his radio program, "Dr. James Dobson's
Family Talk." It's heard on more than 1,300 stations across
the country, around the globe. He also has more than five plus million followers
now on social media. He has an earned PhD from the University of
Southern California. He holds—catch this—18 honorary doctoral
degrees, you all. He's the author of more than 30 books. By the way, his latest, Your Legacy: The Greatest
Gift, by James Dobson, and he'll be out here with this book after convo this morning. He served as an associate clinical professor
of pediatrics at USC School of Medicine for 14 years. He was also on the attending staff of the
Children's Hospital of Los Angeles for 17 years under the divisions of child development
and medical genetics. He is married to his wife Shirley. He's going to introduce her in just a moment,
you all. And they have two grown children — Danae
and Ryan — two grandchildren. They live in Colorado Springs. Let me say this; not long ago, Liberty forged
a partnership relationship with Dr. Dobson, and we have created the James C. Dobson Center
for Child Development, Marriage, and Family Studies right here at Liberty. Now, through online courses, you can get an
undergraduate minor and a graduate cognate in child development and parenting, or in
marriage and family studies, or in family advocacy through the James C. Dobson Center
now. We think that's a really big deal here at
Liberty. Dr. Dobson is a true friend, an advocate for
Christianity, you all. He's been a bold testimony and witness for
Christ his entire life. He stands strong. He's a true friend of Liberty. It wasn't long ago—well a few years back—he
gave the commencement address here. It was such a joy to have him at Liberty at
that time. It's great to have him back. Would you guys help me welcome to this podium
Dr. James C. Dobson? >> JAMES DOBSON: Thank you so much Dr. Clinton! Thank you for those very warm words of welcome,
and it's so good to be back on the campus of Liberty — one of the great universities
in the world. And it's a pleasure to be here with you. Dr. Clinton said I was going to introduce
my wife Shirley to you. I would like to do that now. This is my wife Shirley, in whom I'm well
pleased. We have just celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary. We think it's going to work! We have had such a wonderful marriage. Humor has had a lot to do with it. We have a shared sense of humor. I've got to tell you a story about Shirley. A while back I was invited to be a guest on
the Larry King Show for the 15th time through the years, and the Larry King people gave
us a rented car, and Shirley had control of it. And she was trying to get to the studio. I was already there, and she was coming through
Los Angeles traffic. And in Los Angeles, in order to get on the
freeway, you come up a ramp, and there's a red light and a green light for each of the
two lanes that come up. She was in the left lane, and she was waiting
for her lane to turn green—the light to turn green. And she was talking to her dad's doctor. Her step-dad was really dying. He was in great difficulty, so she was very
distracted by this. So she's sitting there on this lane waiting
for her right to go and get on the freeway, and out of the corner of her eye she sees
the light over here for the other lane turn green, and she thought it was time for her
to go. And she banged into the guy in front of her. She really whacked him hard. And she got out, and now she's blocking traffic. She got out, and she greeted the man who was
getting out. She said, "I'm so sorry." She tried to explain what had happened. And they exchanged drivers' licenses. The guy looked at her driver's license, saw
the picture, saw the name, and said, "You—you wouldn't happen to be Shirley Dobson would
you?" And she said, "Well yes, I'm married to Jim
Dobson." He said, "Wow! I've been hit by Shirley Dobson." And he was so thrilled; he said, "Wait ‘til
I tell my wife!” And Shirley says, “You know, we're going
to fix this car. I'm so sorry and everything.” He didn't care about that. He wanted an autographed book! So he drove away with the bumper hanging off,
and Shirley was pleased at least that she didn't get carried off to jail or what have
you. But we have had many moments like that. She got to Larry King's studio on time. But I tell you something, I was here before
on May the 15th, 1993, and loved being here. Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr. sent a plane for me,
brought me here. I spoke at the graduation ceremony that day. That's been 23 years, and 4—and 3 months—23
years and three months. And I am delighted to be back, and I am going
to do something I have never done before. In 45 years of speaking, I've never done what
I'm going to do now. Dr. Clinton has asked me to speak to you on
the same subject that I did 23 years ago. Now, there will be no students here who were
there on that day, so they won't remember. And there may be some aging professors who
can't remember, so it's I suppose not going to matter. But I want to tell you at least the outline
of what I said on that day, and it relates to an experience I had. I want to go all the way back to when I was
18 years of age. I went off to college; I went to Point Loma
College. Some of you know that school. Shirley and I both went there. And I got there a day early, and so I was
walking around the campus, and I was just looking at the place that was going to be
my home for the next 4 years, and I went into the administration building, and right there
in the center of the building was a big trophy case with all the glass around, and here were
all the evidences of the athletic accomplishment at this school through the year. And I stood there looking at that. Right there in the center of the trophy case
was a big, perpetual tennis trophy, and at that time tennis was my whole life. I mean I played tennis 11 months out of the
year and absolutely loved it and wanted to go be on the team at Point Loma. It was called Pasadena College then. And so I stood there, and that trophy had
the names of all the tennis greats going back to 1947. It was based on winning the school tennis
tournament. And I stood there, and I looked at all those
names, and I fantasized that someday, someday I would get my name on that trophy. And I did play four years of tennis, and the
last two years I got my name on the trophy as the outstanding student. I didn't mean that to impress you, but my
name was engraved there, and I left there knowing that my legacy was secure, that I
had accomplished what I set out to do, and future generations of students would come
and stand as I did before that trophy and admire my accomplishments. Well, 15 years ago, 15 years after that, a
friend was up on that campus, and he had reason to be around behind that administration building
where the dumpster is, and he found my tennis trophy in the trash—my tennis trophy! Here I am a legend in my own time, or in my
own mind, and he captured that tennis trophy. They threw it away. They just threw it out. I mean, you know, when there are great athletes
they put up a banner and your number's retired. They retired my memory! They just got rid of it, and he cleaned it
up and put a new little man on the top and gave it to me, and I brought it for you to
see today. This is my trophy. And it's in my office today, and if you want
to come admire it and see it, I welcome you to come. What I learned from that was a very valuable
lesson. I learned that if you live long enough, if
you live long enough, life will trash your trophies. I don't care what they are. Whatever your accomplishments are, whatever
you think of as the most important thing you have done, sooner or later it won't matter. I went to high school at a time in South Texas—wasn't
a big high school, but we had the world's fastest human being there. His name was Bobby Morrow, and he ran the
100-yard—they call it meters today—100-yard dash in 9.3 seconds. Nobody else had ever done that before. Bobby was number one, and he went on to Abilene
Christian University, and the Olympics occurred right after that. And he competed in the Olympics in 1956; that's
when it occurred. And he won three gold medals for the 100,
the 220, and the 440 relay, and was honored by Sports Illustrated as being the best, most
outstanding athlete, or sportsman, of the year. Bobby Morrow, cover of Sports Illustrated,
and that made him the best athlete of the year according to Sports Illustrated. And yet, I watched the Olympics this year,
and it was all about Usain Bolt. It was not about Bobby Morrow. Bobby Morrow was not even mentioned, and wasn't
in the previous Olympics, and I don't think he's been mentioned for years. He was a big deal then. He's totally forgotten. In fact, I went to Abilene Christian University
to speak. There are 5,000 students there, and this was
his school. This is where he was going to school when
he won the Olympics. I asked them how many knew of Bobby Morrow. Nobody. Not one person raised their hand. Nobody knew Bobby Morrow, because that was
yesterday, and life had trashed his trophies. Who cares now who won the race for the senate
in New Jersey in 1948? Who cares? Nobody can even imagine who it would've been. Who cares who won the World Series in 1933? It doesn't matter. It was long ago, and it has been forgotten. I wonder if there's anybody in this building,
12,000 students, here who remembers the name or knows the name Hugo Eckner. Anybody hear his name, have any idea? If I could offer you a million dollars if
you could say why he was known, nobody here could do that. I don't plan to do that. Hugo Eckner, in 1928, was the best known individual
in the world. There was nobody better known that him. He built the dirigibles, the zeppelins, you
know, the devices—. I don't even know what it is. It's called a balloon that was filled with
oxygen and later helium. He's the one that created that. That was his invention. Big deal, who cares? Everybody knew Hugo Eckner then, but they
don't today, because life will trash your trophies sooner or later. If you want to know what will stand the test
of time, I think I can tell you. It's what I call an end of life test. Project yourself to the end of your life—which
will come one of these days–and when you're there, and you're looking back, what will
matter to you then? Will it be the plaques on the wall? Will it be the degrees you won? Will it be the building you built that bears
your name? Will it be the books you write? Will it be the money you make? Those things will not matter that much to
you then, because that's in the past. You know what will matter most in that moment? I can tell you! What will matter most is who you loved, who
loved you, and what you did together in the service of the Lord. There's nothing else that will stand the test
of time! Let me share one illustration to wrap this
up. Let me hear from those of you who know Pete
Maravich was. All right. He is still an icon. Pete Maravich was probably one of the very
best—some say one of the best five MBA basketball players of all time. When he was in junior high school, people
would come to watch him play basketball and then go home, because he was more exciting
than the varsity. Pete Maravich's dad was a coach, and he worked
on him. Maravich was show time before somebody named
Magic came along and called it show time. He was an unbelievable basketball player. He went to LSU, and he left 43 NCAA records,
most of which still stand. He had a game—per game point average of
44, and he was incredible. He went into the NBA after he graduated from
LSU, and was the first they called a million-dollar baby. He was the first player to be offered a million
dollars as a bonus to sign a contract to play in the NBA. But I tell you something about Pete Maravich—he
was not a very nice man. He drank too much. He was a womanizer, and he had very few friends. But he was a great basketball player. When he went into the NBA he left records,
and he was outstanding, but he was still a pretty miserable human being. And he went through his career, and his knees
started bothering him, and he couldn't play anymore, and he retired. And he couldn't go anywhere, because everywhere
he went, people, you know, tried to get him to get autographs, or photographs, or what
have you. They wouldn't leave him alone, so he stayed
in his house. He stayed there for two years alone in his
house. His marriage had been broken, and this is
what he-his life had come down to. Now you can do anything you want with this—what
I'm going to tell you now theologically. All I can tell you is what he said, that one
morning at 5 o'clock in the morning he heard his name. He was in bed asleep, and he heard his name. He sat up in bed, and he looked around and
heard it again. He got out of bed, got on his knees, and gave
his heart to Jesus Christ. For the next five years he could not talk
to you for five minutes without telling you what Jesus had done for him. He was on fire for the Lord, and he wrote
a book called Heir to a Dream where he talked about basketball, talked about his father
a lot. And I was doing radio as I've done for nearly
40 years, and I called him. We got acquainted, and I asked him if he would
come and let me interview him for our radio program. He said he'd like to do that, and so we set
the date, and he came. And then I did one of the most audacious things
I've ever done in my life. I love basketball, but I am a duffer, and
here's one of the best basketball players of all times. And I invited him to play basketball with
us in the morning, because we played three times a week at 7 o'clock in the morning. And he came that morning, and I introduced
him to the other people that were there, and we played a little bit. We played a pick-up game. It was no big deal, but I invited the center
from UCLA—the team that had won the NCAA that year. And I invited him to come guard Pete, because
nobody else could handle him. And so he came, and we played. We had a wonderful time—neat guy. For 45 minutes we played, and then everybody
stopped to go take a break, get some water, what have you, and I stood talking to Pete
on the floor. And I wish I had the conversation recorded,
but I said, "Pete, you can't give up this game. This has meant so much to you through the
year. You just can't give it up." He said, "You know, I hate not being able
to play, and I've only played one time in the last year which was at the legends game
for the NBA." And he said, "I haven't played, because I
haven't been able to lift a two-pound ball over my head. I've got a problem with my right shoulder. If it had been the left shoulder everybody
would have had some suspicions as to why. It was his right soldier. And he said, "I just cannot do that," and
he said, "I love this game, and I would love to play again." I said, "Well Pete, how are you doing today?" And he said, "You know what, I just feel great. I've loved playing." And he made moves today I have never seen
before. He was an unbelievable player, even with that
disability. But he said, “I loved playing today, and
maybe I'm getting better.” And with that I turned to walk away. I turned my back, and for some reason I turned
around and looked just in time to see Pete fall. And He went down hard. His face hit the boards. He didn't break his fall; he just went down
on his face. And I thought he was teasing. He had a good sense of humor. By the way, he had a t-shirt on that said
“looking unto Jesus,” because that's what he cared about. That's the only thing he cared about. And I went up to him, and I kind of protected
myself. I said, “Pete, are you okay?” And he didn't answer, and I saw that he was
in a seizure. And I knelt down beside him, and I held his
tongue, and I began CPR, and I called for the other guys. One of them—the 7'2" guy that I had invited
came, and he worked on the heart; I worked on the upper body and the mouth. And we never another breath from him. This greatest athlete, one of the greatest
athletes in the history of basketball died in my arms on that day—one of the greatest
shocks of my life. I mean I couldn't believe it, and the media
was all over me within 30 minutes. They were from all over the place. In fact, this was carried around the world. The whole world was hearing about what had
happened to Pete Maravich. They still call me today after all this time. And I was stunned, literally stunned, because
this was a man I really wanted to know. And I could have had the very last conversation
with him, but I never got that opportunity. They allowed my little team—the guys that
were playing basketball—to come to the hospital, because he didn't have family there, and allowed
us to come into the room where he lay. And we stood around his body, and we prayed
for his wife, his two children, and the memory of this man, but that was the end of Pete
Maravich. I spoke at his funeral, but that day when
I left the hospital I didn't feel like working, and I went home. And I walked in the door, and my son Ryan
was there. And he was 17-years-old at the time, and I
said, "Ryan, I guess you have heard what happened today. I want to talk to you about it. Come into my office, will you?" And he did. He sat down, and I said, "I want you to understand
something. I'm going to say probably the most important
thing anyone ever has or ever will say, and I ask you not to forget it. What happened to Pete Maravich today was not
an isolated tragedy that happens to a man and his family. What happened today is the human condition. This is all of us. This is everybody. Sooner or later it's everybody, and sooner
or later you'll get this phone call. You're a lot younger than I am, and you very
likely will outlive me. And somebody is going to tell you someday
that I'm gone, and when that happens—." By the way, by the way I had a heart attack
playing basketball on that same floor about 20 feet away from where Pete died two years
later. So what I said to him was prophetic. Fortunately, I am totally healthy today, but
it didn't look like it at that time. And I had a chance to give myself the end
of life test, because I looked death squarely in the face. But I said, "Ryan, when that occurs, when
your moment comes, and you hear that I have gone, I have every reason to believe I will
be in heaven. And Ryan, this is what I want you to remember. I want you to remember that I care about what
happens to you more than anything else. I want you to accomplish your goals. I want you turn your actuality—I mean your
potentiality into actuality. I want you to do things with your life. You're gifted; you're smart. You will make a way for yourself. But Ryan, as important as those things are,
this is what is most important. Be there on that grand resurrection morning. Be there. I will be looking for you. I'll look all over heaven for you, because
that's the only thing that matters is that you stay true to Christ in that. You are found worthy to spend eternity with
me, and your mom, and your family, and other friends on that morning. Be there. Those two words matter most.” And I came all the way to Lynchburg today
to say that to you. Be there. Of course it's important to accomplish something
in life. It's important to reach your goals. It's important that your expectations will
be fulfilled, but in time life will trash those goals if you live long enough, but be
there. That is the only thing that will outlast everything
else. And life will not trash that memory and that
accomplishment. It's the most important thing in your life. So I leave you with that phrase. Be there. And it's been a pleasure being here with you
all. It's been 23 years since I was here. Maybe in 23 years I'll back. God bless you!
