[kkkkandp]

Bob Costas is a great public speaker.

He was receiving an honorary degree from Loyola University in Baltimore the year my niece graduated (2006). Since it wasn't a funeral, the mood wasn't at all somber and in addition to providing the obligatory pep talk he poked fun at other recent commencement speakers (like Oprah Winfrey), the Loyola men's basketball team (for their level of futility) , but mostly at his own unworthiness to be the keynote speaker at a college graduation ceremony since he never finished his own undergraduate program at Syracuse.

Many times you just want the damned speech to be over, but that day everyone sat completely riveted when he was speaking.