Recognizing the 1960 University of Missouri Tigers Football Team

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of the greatest teams to ever wear the black and gold, the 1960 Missouri Tigers. They finished 11 and 0. They conquered the Big Eight. They defeated the Navy Midshipmen 21 to 14 in the Orange Bowl in Florida. But their greatness can't be measured by their record alone; their story is about something deeper--perseverance after humiliation, accountability in the face of injustice, and the integrity of men who kept their word.

To understand what they accomplished, we must go back 2 years. Dan Devine arrived at Missouri in 1958 and inherited a program searching for its footing. His first team brought one terrible afternoon in Norman, OK. The Sooners beat Missouri 39 to nothing. It was a humiliating, dismantling, and devastating loss.

After the game, Coach Devine stood before his players in the visiting locker room, knowing full well many of those men would graduate having never beaten OU. Coach Devine looked at the younger men and made a promise: Two years from that day, Missouri would return to Norman, and Missouri would win.

That was no small pledge. Oklahoma ruled the conference at that time. The Sooners hadn't lost a conference game at home since 1942. Norman was where the soaring dreams of visiting teams came crashing down to reality. But a promise had been made by Coach Devine, so for 2 years, the Tigers went to work.

By the fall of 1960, Missouri had become a machine--powerful, disciplined, relentless. The Tigers went into Happy Valley and beat Penn State. They traveled to Lincoln, NE, and shut out the Cornhuskers. They defeated the powerhouse that was Colorado. Eight games, eight victories--not a single team put up double digits against them.

Then came the return to Norman. Oklahoma struck first. For a moment, the Tigers were seeing ghosts. For a moment, the boys in black and gold had ``Boomer Sooner'' ringing in their ears. For a moment, it felt like 1958 all over again. But this Missouri team did not panic; it answered.

Norris Stevenson, one of the great pioneers in Mizzou history, tore down the sideline for a 77-yard touchdown. Later, with Oklahoma threatening to seize the momentum, Stevenson broke free again, this time from 60 yards out. He finished with 169 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Missouri finished with 41 points. And when the clock hit triple zeroes, the scoreboard read ``Missouri 41, Oklahoma 19.'' Two years from the humiliating loss on the field, Dan Devine and his players walked out of Norman as victors--a promise they had kept.

The Tigers returned home undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the Nation. Only one obstacle remained between Missouri and an unblemished season. Unfortunately, that obstacle was Kansas.

Rivalry games can produce strange results. Sometimes, the underdog rises. Sometimes, the favorite has an off day. And sometimes, Kansas simply uses a player who wasn't eligible to be on the field.

The Jayhawks defeated Missouri on the scoreboard. For a few brief and fraudulent weeks, they called themselves conference champs, but there was a problem: The Jayhawks had discovered that the only way they could execute better than Missouri was by breaking the rules.

The Big Eight ordered Kansas to forfeit the victory and stripped the Jayhawks of the conference title. Kansas could keep the memory of the final whistle; Missouri kept the title. That distinction matters. A football game, yes, is a contest of strength, but it is a contest that is governed by rules. Without rules, victory means nothing. A championship obtained by cheating is not a championship at all.

The people of Kansas have spent more than six decades trying to turn a blatant penalty into a moral victory, but the truth is harder to bear, and facts are stubborn things. Missouri finished 11 and 0, reminding the conference and the American populace that cheaters never truly win.

But Missouri's season wasn't finished. On January 2, 1961, the Tigers took the field in Miami against fourth-ranked Navy. Watching from the stands was President John F. Kennedy. Navy had a Heisman Trophy winner named Joe Bellino. Missouri had a defense built to break the will of its opponent.

The Tigers held that year's Heisman winner just to 4 rushing yards. Then they overcame a 98-yard fumble return. They absorbed every blow Navy could deliver, and when the night was over, Missouri had won 21 to 14, securing the first bowl victory in school history.

Every generation needs examples of men who stuck to their word. Dan Devine made a promise in the ashes of defeat. His players believed him. His players were descendants of those who fought in Europe and the Pacific. His players were hardened by parents who had weathered the Great Depression. They accepted their coach's promise as their word when they spent 2 years earning the right to fulfill it. They did not complain about the humiliation they had experienced in Norman; they prepared for a return. They didn't allow the Kansas dishonesty to define their season; they trusted that the truth would prevail. When adversity followed them to Miami, they answered it with discipline, toughness, and ultimately victory.

More than six decades later, the 1960 Tigers still embody the character of Missouri. We are a people who work. We are a people who endure. We are a people who keep our promises.

The men of that team brought home a Big Eight championship and the Orange Bowl championship game in a perfect season, but their greatest legacy was the example they left behind: Stand firm, do the work, keep your word, run the ball, and never surrender what was rightfully yours.

Today, I am proud to honor Coach Dan Devine, Norris Stevenson, and every member of the undefeated 1960 Missouri Tigers. Their promise was kept, their championship was earned, their record remains perfect, and Kansas still lost.

Res. 833, which is before the desk.

I have been advised to address this so-called Delaney Hall Closure Act.

My colleague's bill, though, really doesn't do anything to address the issues that he has raised. He doesn't hire a single doctor. He doesn't ask a single nurse. It doesn't require a single inspection. It simply orders the Department of Homeland Security to close Delaney Hall, cancel its contract, and permanently prevent ICE from using the facility again. Two pages, three commands: Close it, cancel it, never open it again. That is abolition with a short title.

The diagnosis is ideological, and the prescription was written before the patient entered the room. If something goes wrong at a hospital, you investigate what happened. You identify the failure. You discipline the people responsible. You repair the facility, improve the procedures, and make the hospital better. You don't unlock every door, abandon the building, and announce that healthcare itself was the crime.

If the bridge needs repair, you fix the bridge. You don't blow it up and congratulate yourself for preventing future traffic accidents. Yet that is the theory behind this bill. A tragedy did occur; therefore, Democrats say law enforcement must disappear.

But closing Delaney Hall doesn't eliminate the need for detention. It leaves three choices: transfer detainees somewhere else, possibly further from their families, lawyers and doctors; crowd them into another facility and further strain medical staff; or release people the law says should remain in custody, while this ceases the removals, and so they are not completed.

The bill provides no replacement capacity, no transfer plan, no continuity of care requirement, no additional medical funding. It removes a thousand-bed facility from the system and calls the resulting chaos compassion.

And let us be clear about why immigration detention exists. It is used to ensure appearances at immigration proceedings, facilitate lawful removals, and to protect the public from criminals.

My colleague and my friend from New Jersey says many detainees have not been convicted of crimes. That is beside the point. A person doesn't need a criminal conviction to lack a lawful right to be in the United States of America. That is our immigration laws. That is how we have operated for decades. And anyone detained can leave detention whenever they want. They must simply agree to return to their home country.

What Democrats demand is for illegal aliens to remain in America and be above the law.

Now, I am willing to take my colleague's concerns seriously. If Delaney Hall needs more doctors, let us fund more doctors. If it needs more nurses, better medication tracking, stronger inspections, faster emergency response, or better communication with families, let us write those regulations into law and pay for them.

I would gladly work with my friend the Senator from New Jersey on additional resources for safe and secure ICE detention facilities. But there is one problem. My colleague and others on his side have vowed to not give ICE one more penny.

We have just lived through this with a shutdown. We heard these words on the floor from many Members of the other side.

They also voted against a bill that allocated 45 billion to further fund and sustain the capabilities of ICE in their detention facilities.

So the position apparently is this: Vote against the beds. Vote against the facilities. Vow to deny the agency another dollar. Then point to a stray condition and demand that the facility close.

You can't pull the batteries out of a smoke alarm and then pose behind the ashes demanding to know who failed.

You can't starve a system, condemn the strain, and call abolition the only human solution. That is not good-faith oversight. That is not serious governance. That is not a viable solution.

Democrats oppose the funding needed to enforce the law. They oppose the facilities needed to hold people safely. They oppose the removals that detention makes possible. Then, when the system shows any pressure, they point to that pressure as proof that enforcement itself must end. The sequence never changes: defund, obstruct, investigate, abolish.

The goal for many Democrats is very clear. It is not better detention facilities; it is no detention at all. The bill does not make one detention facility safer; it shuts down a facility and pushes the problem somewhere else.

A serious Senate would let the current investigation run its course, correct failures, and strengthen the system. An unserious Senate shuts down the building and pretends the law no longer needs enforcement.

Fix what is broken. Hold wrongdoers accountable. Protect every person in Federal custody, of course, but we must enforce the law.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source