I've gotten to know a lot of great people here in all the different sports. It's fun. It's fun to get involved where you live. And this is where I live. I'm a registered voter here. I have my Wisconsin driver's license.
The thing I love about Wisconsin is the people. We have such incredible people here. It's fun to recognize the incredible athletes and coaches and sponsors and people we have here tonight. But we also have incredible fans.
I wanted to really ingrain myself in the culture and the people. And I apologize about having an allergy to dairy products that gives me some irritable bowels, but other than that, I mean, I've embraced just about everything else Wisconsin - especially when it comes to sports, but also the people and the interactions with our fans.
I was born in Chicago, then I spent most of my youth in Joliet, Illinois which is about thirty minutes south, and I went to a military academy for high school in Wisconsin. Then I went to college, on a basketball scholarship to a small school in Iowa, so I'm like Mr. Midwest.
It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message. I always think about a little gay boy in Wisconsin or a little lesbian in Arkansas seeing someone like me, and if I cannot be open in my life, how on earth can they?
I was pretty sure I lacked the wisdom to be the commencement speaker, but after stewing over the idea for about 48 hours, I decided that if the senior class at the University of Wisconsin wants me to come speak, I'll do whatever they ask me. I love that school.
The reason Donald Trump was elected was that we automated away four million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If you look at the voter data, it shows that the higher the level of concentration of manufacturing robots in a district, the more that district voted for Trump.
Paul Ryan hasn't lacked for a job since he left college as the golden child of Wisconsin Republican politics, riding his family connections into a job with then-Senator Bob Kasten.
In 2010, conservatives won big majorities in the Wisconsin State Legislature, and I openly supported many of their reforms, including changes to collective bargaining and expansions of school choice.
My experience over my five years at Wisconsin and my one year in the NFL was that there were times where I couldn't play the game safely. There are positive measures we can take... but on a lead play, on a power play, there's violence.