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David Halberstam
Pulitzer Prize for Journalism
My father had served in both World War I and World War II, so we grew up thinking we were pretty good Americans. We didn't feel that we were lesser Americans than families who had been here a couple hundred years. I suppose there is a sort of innocence to many children of the immigrant story in the sense that they take the Statue of Liberty very seriously. They take the First Amendment seriously. They believe that this stuff is serious, that if you go out there and you cover America, the dream is supposed to work. We're not cynics. We're skeptics, and I think that was ingrained in our home and crystallized in my education at Harvard, where I was on the Harvard Crimson, which was a very good daily paper and which was very independent of the Harvard administration. It was fiercely independent. It took no money from Harvard, and there was a culture there of great social and cultural and political independence. Then I worked in the South for five years -- on a very good paper in Nashville, Tennessee for four years, which during the early days of the civil rights movement was independent and liberal and a tension point with, I think, the community at large often on racial issues. You learn not to seek popularity.
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David Halberstam
Pulitzer Prize for Journalism
The immigrant dream is very powerful in our family. America gave you a chance to be who you wanted to be. I think a lot of people take this for granted in America. They assume every other country is like this, and America, there's a couple of things that I think are critical to the American Dream. One is that one generation comes here and doesn't have the skill or the language and therefore has to sacrifice, but critical to their reason for sacrificing is the idea that the next generation will live better than they did in the old country and will rise above them. It's a great, great powerful thing, the ability to rise in one generation above what your parents were. The other thing -- and I think people really do take this for granted -- is the idea that in America you can invent yourself and be who you want. You don't have to be a prisoner of the past. To an astonishing degree in Europe, in the Old World or other parts, if your father was a peasant, you're a peasant. If he worked on the railroad, you're supposed to work on the railroad. If he was a tailor, you're a tailor. If he went to the École Polytechnique and was a high-level engineer, you can go to the École Polytechnique. But in America, that's not true. We really can be whatever we want, and it's just built into this country. Because of the great university system, because of the open education, there really is a sense that whatever it is you want to be, you can be, and I think that is more powerful now than ever.
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Dorothy Hamill
Olympic Hall of Fame
My mom -- I remember walking into the hotel room and she said, "So, how did you do?" I said, "I won." And she looked at me startled and said, "You did?" She was shocked. She never congratulated me. I think she just never thought I would do it. But my dad, of course, was very proud. And I'm sure my mother was proud. I just didn't know. I guess about four years before the Olympics the goal was to try and make it to the Olympics and hopefully maybe win a medal. And then all of a sudden when that actually happens, it's disconcerting. I mean, now what? What happens now? We didn't plan for that. You know, we just planned for everything up until that moment. And then, "Oh now what?" So it was an interesting time.
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Scott Hamilton
Olympic Hall of Fame
The World Championships is a place for you to really compete and try to beat other skaters from other countries. At the Olympic Games you are representing the United States. It's a different whole. It's the same skaters, same judges, same size of ice, same music, same everything, same format, same, same, but the one thing that is different is: It's the Olympic Games, and you're sharing your successes and failures with everyone that's a U.S. citizen. And it's theirs, it belongs to them. So when I sit up on the podium and I get my medal and I get to hear my anthem and to see my flag raised, I'm the point person for millions and millions of people, that can for that moment in time just feel pride that one of their own did okay. And you feel like you have like 100 million parents and 100 million brothers and sisters and you share it.
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Scott Hamilton
Olympic Hall of Fame
What I didn't know is how many people you touch when you achieve a certain level of success in anything. You touch thousands and millions of people and you affect them. And you don't maybe know them, but they know you. And what I had no idea was that all those hours I was spending tracing compulsory figures and pushing myself through a long program in altitude, all that work would touch so many people and that my life would never be that again. When you walk down the street and people know who you are. That you've touched people and inspired them, maybe somebody that may be struggling with something. You connect with them somehow. It makes their life a little bit better. I had no idea that any of this was possible. Or that, anything I would ever do would affect anybody. And that's the one thing I've learned through the whole process of winning competitions, and going to the Olympics, and being a pro and really trying to direct the sport in new ways and creating new opportunities, is that when you touch a lot of people, it's like that George Bailey thing from It's A Wonderful Life. You touch people, and you change things and you affect them.
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Scott Hamilton
Olympic Hall of Fame
I think the American Dream is that you can do whatever you want with your life. You can pave your own path, you can do whatever you want, and you're free to do that. If you want to be a brain surgeon, you can be a brain surgeon. If you want to live on a beach, you can live on a beach. If you want to, you can do whatever you want and every life is unique. Everybody that lives in this country has their own story, has their own talent, their own ability, their own desires and interests and tastes, and they have the opportunity to explore those without any restriction.
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