Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much, first, Senator Dodd, for your dedication and your service, your friendship, and your wonderful…”

“Thank you very much, first, Senator Dodd, for your dedication and your service, your friendship, and your wonderful, wonderful introduction. It's worth three more strokes the next time we play golf. [Laughter] Chairman Rome, President Hartley, Governor Rowland, Senator Lieberman, members of the congressional delegation, and especially your Congressman, Representative Gejdenson, thank you for your fine remarks here today. To the State officials who are here and the Senators and former Members of the United States Senate; to my friend Governor O'Neill and all others who have served this great State; the faculty, students, and friends of the University of Connecticut; and to the remarkable American treasure, Morton Gould, who composed that awesome piece of music we heard just before we started the program. Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be here. As an old musician, I'd like to begin by congratulating the wind ensemble. They were quite wonderful in every way, I thought. As a near fanatic basketball fan, I am glad to be in a place where it can truly be said there is no other place in America where both men and women play basketball so well under the same roof. And at the risk of offending the Dodd family and all the other Irish who are here, I want to say that your new football coach, with his remarkable record, learned at his father's knee, not at Notre Dame but when he spent 9 years in my home State as a football coach.…”