Trevor Oberg delivers MCC student speech

McCOOK, Neb. -- The following is the text of McCook Community College student speaker Trevor Oberg's speech today at MCC commencement ceremonies:

“The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that looked like they couldn't be done” Arnold Palmer

“Today we are all here to celebrate something that at least one person thought that we couldn't do. I look and see many people who completed certifications, degrees and finished their junior college athletic careers. Even Though all of us came from different backgrounds, we will have two things in common -- perseverance and self- belief.

Here is how these two qualities got me to this day.

"I wasn't always the smartest, the biggest or the fastest in high school. I was a very average student and I was not well decorated as a golfer. I always wondered what would happen if I failed instead of what would happen if I succeeded. Through my two years here though I changed how I went about my life and how to succeed.

"The first college test I got back I remember getting a bad grade and thinking if I couldn't pass the first test in my first college class then how will I be able to do this over 60 credit hours of college curriculum? Instead of folding like before though I told myself to find a way. Over the next two years I did find a way by seeking out help from fellow classmates, thought of watching countless online tutorials and by getting back up after the failure with more desire than before.

"Through all this I did something no one thought was possible. When I was in high school I never got any major academic award but here I made the Dean's list four times and the Presidents list and was rewarded with second-team academic all-american award. I never got many academic accolades before McCook Community College, but like many situations in life, mindset is most important for success.

"Believing in yourself is the other quality that got me to this day as well. I came to MCC only having golfed since I was 15 and had never qualified for any major postseason event in my career. I had to work to just get a scholarship here and many of my peers still questioned why my coach was picking a player with such a small career resume. Despite all the people who told me this I worked every day to prove them wrong. I pushed to make the starting line up every week my freshman year. I came up short most weeks but still kept pushing harder and harder which made my teammates better and then we made Nationals as a team. I still had a more burning desire to be a starter though and play at Nationals. I heard many people tell me that even though I was a good golfer I wasn't good enough to be a starter and that I won't play at a four-year college and I was chasing a hopeless dream.

"I had one person who believed and that one person was myself. I worked hard and dropped four strokes off my scoring average and started all seven events in the fall my sophomore year and also signed a scholarship to Kansas Wesleyan University to continue my golf career. I believed I could do it, and that was the first step into seeing your full potential.

"I have shared my story with you today but I am not the exception. We all faced adversity and had to believe in ourselves to get there this day and I hope we can take all the lessons we learned with us to make the world a better place and be proud that you can call yourself a McCook Community College Graduate."

"Roll Tribe!”