Book of Jobbed #6: Talking Out of My Butker
They're clearly hiring anybody for commencement addresses these days.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave a commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Butker’s nailed 89.1% of attempts in his career but this time he hooked it far right.
His address ran 20 minutes in length and touched on a variety of totally normal, not at all weird things for a commencement speech: abortion, Pride Month being not good, COVID-19 lockdowns, DEI being “tyranny,” and birth control.
Most media scrutiny around the speech has focused on the portion where Butker implies that being a homemaker is the only true, good, and God-sanction job for women. Per the transcript published by the National Catholic Registry that includes the funniest editor’s note of all time:
I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.
[Applause lasting 18 seconds]
She is a primary educator to our children. She is the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core, and it is through our marriage that, Lord willing, we will both attain salvation.
I say all of this to you because I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God's will in their life. Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, “Heck, No.”
A great number of people took umbrage with this, including the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, who critiqued this antiquated vision of the world from a religious perspective:
One of our concerns [about Butker’s speech is] the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God's people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.
There’s also a bizarre part of this bizarre speech where he extolls the virtues of being “unapologetic in your masculinity,” and that men should do hard things like public speaking, even if they’re introverts like him. Then, to prove just how smart and serious a person he is, he clumsily pivots to explaining how the Traditional Latin Mass is the best kind of mass.
I feel the need to make a joke that’s like “being a kicker is so easy a girl could do it” because more and more women are kickers at the collegiate level. I know this joke is sort of misogynistic but it would hurt Butker’s feelings so I feel like that might make it kind of a wash?
At any rate, this controversial speech was somehow not the biggest debacle of commencement speech season. That honor belongs to Ohio State University.
The Ohio State University’s 2024 Spring commencement address can be described many ways. “Good” is not one of them.
It was so bad, I feel they should lose their privilege to use the “The” they put in front of the school’s name. They should not only be referred to as “An Ohio State University” or “Teh Ohio State University.”
The fifteen minute speech, which can be viewed in all of its glory via this YouTube link, included a failed attempt by the speaker to get the crowd to sing along to a 90s pop song, a shoutout to bitcoin that made the 60,000 people in The Shoe audibly groan, and concluded with him asking the crowd to follow him on LinkedIn and Instagram.
The speaker was Chris Pan, who you have almost certainly never heard of before but was described by the university as a “social entrepreneur, musician, and inspirational speaker.”
By comparison, past speakers at Ohio State commencements include Astronaut Neil Armstrong, then sitting President Barack Obama, and football coach/war crimes enthusiast Woody Hayes.
Since Teh Ohio State University’s standards are clearly in the gutter, and I—a blogger and graduate of a hated rival institution—clearly have a shot at the job now, I’ve prepared some brief remarks for when they decide to give me a call.
The Dan Plagens Commencement Address
Thank you to the University’s President, the Trustees, members of the faculty, parents, friends, students, and members of the graduating class of [year TBD] at Teh Ohio State University. Congratulations to you guys!
[Applause lasting 18 seconds]
I am flattered you invited me to be with you today. I don’t know why you did it. But you did it.
Speaking to 60,000 people in a football stadium—it’s quite intimidating. It’s not what I’m used to. I’m used to quarter-filled comedy clubs in Los Angles that feel like they’re gonna get raided by the feds any second.
I also don’t know why you invited a Michigan alum. I’m sorry. “A School Up North Alum.” I assume the decision was made the same way this speech was written: you were drunk [Note: I was not drunk when I wrote this].
Commencement speeches, as I understand them, are not just for the speaker to attack the audience. They’re for the speaker to impart wisdom and advice.
Unfortunately for you, I don’t have any wisdom to share, but I do have tons of advice.
In fact, I have three pieces of advice for you.
Piece of Advice Number One:
If you are going to give a commencement address where you extoll the virtues of classical notions of masculinity—don’t. We’re all good on that front. We got idiots for days on YouTube and TikTok putting half-baked ideas into eighth graders heads. We don’t need anymore. We are all filled up. No more spots on the roster for you. But if you absolutely must get on some man-o-sphere nonsense, then I suggest doing so while being anything other than a kicker.
Kickers have to have the least dangerous job in contact sports. No one cares what they have to say about being a man. I would be willing to listen to a punter. I would even be willing to listen to a longsnapper. But kickers? The guys who never get hit and cry when they miss field goals? Nah. Anyway—
Piece of Advice Number Two:
If you’re ever giving a commencement address, you should try not to insult the audience if there are nuns in it.
I am not a religious person, but I have watched enough movies to understand at one point in the not too distant past they hit kids with rulers and don’t have a lot of other ways of blowing off steam. They also spend a lot more time reading the bible than I do, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say they probably have a better idea of what God thinks than I would or, say, an NFL kicker with a B+ in accuracy.
Luckily I’m not worrying about this piece advice for this speech because this is Ohio State and God has clearly forsaken this place. If He hadn’t, Donovan Edwards wouldn’t have run for a long touchdown. Twice.
Piece of Advice Number Three:
Lastly, don’t grind your a culture war axe during a commencement address. That’s not what they’re for. They’re for giving patronizing advice while students dissociate and parents tell themselves they did a good job raising their kid.
The commencement address I had to listen to when I graduated tried to do both. Michael Bloomberg talked about how safe spaces were bad because you should listen to people who disagree with you while a guy six rows behind me shouted “fuck you.” He also said you shouldn’t take jobs that pay the most, but rather the ones that teach you the most.
I’m going to give you better advice than that. In fact, I’m going to give you real, nuts-and-bolts practical advice. You all sitting on the edge of your seats? Okay. Here it is:
Only ever make real estate deals with men wearing trench coats. They always have the best prices. Thanks to strange men in trench coats, I’m the proud owner of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statute of Liberty, and an acre on the moon.
If you follow these three pieces of advice, you too can reach the same pinnacles of success as I. You too can have a Substack with a readership in the double digits, and, yes, you can even finish third in a screenwriting contest.
So go forth, out into the world, and be like your football team: incredibly productive at first before blowing it against your rival in hilarious fashion.