NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The Yale Athletic Department honored the 2023 recipients of the George H.W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award at the Blue Leadership Ball on Friday night at the Schwarzman Center. The Class of 2023 Bush Award winners were Dr. Ed Barksdale Jr. '80, Dr. Christopher Brown '90, Dr. Terry Light '69, Rear Admiral Carol Lynch, USN, (Ret.) '81, Frank Shorter '69, and Yale President Peter Salovey '86 Ph.D.

This George H.W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award honors individuals who, in their lives during and after Yale, have made significant leadership contributions in their worlds of governance, commerce, science and technology, education, public service, and the arts and media. Read more about this year's recipients here.

"This award is the highest honor the athletics department can bestow on an individual and it is clear why these exceptional leaders were selected," said Victoria M "Vicky" Chun, Thomas A. Beckett Director of Athletics. "Our honorees epitomize the essence of Yale—a place where excellence is not just a goal, but a lifelong commitment."

Friday's event included a panel discussion featuring the award recipients. It was moderated by Jack Ford '72, a 2009 George H.W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award honoree. A former Yale football player, Ford has a pair of Emmy Awards for his work in television.

Hear from this year's award recipients:

Dr. Ed Barksdale Jr. '80
On what he learned and took away from Yale: "Excellence, grit, and community. I think those are implicit. I learned to pursue excellence in a way that I became a little bit immune to failure; I could be bold and lean forward. I learned grit, that things aren't going to always work. But the greatest thing that I learned about at Yale is that life is not about excellence or achievement, that life is about relationships, and that the power of Yale for me is what I see across this room [tonight], which is that power of relationship.

Dr. Christopher Brown '90
On his most special moment at Yale, Brown said, "There's not a day I don't think about my time playing football at Yale, so it's hard to talk about a single moment because the whole experience was so special."

"We won a championship our senior year," he continued. "In my junior year, I picked off two passes against Harvard in the fourth quarter, which was special, but I truly think the moments I enjoyed were the everyday [routine]. Every day going to practice and walking out that tunnel from the field house to the practice field and thinking that I can't believe I get to do this. Every day, I can't believe I get to do this. It was the everyday part of it that I think was the most special [about being a student-athlete].

Dr. Terry Light '69
On advice he would give to the younger generation: "The challenge that we have always is balance. We have so many demands on our attention or energy that we really have to be vigilant to keep the different parts of our lives in balance. As soon as you have achieved that perfect balance, something will change and you're going to have to rebalance. Doing things that were hard in college at Yale, started me on the road to understanding that balance."  

Rear Admiral Carol Lynch, USN, (Ret.) '81
On being a student-athlete and what she has learned: "It was challenging being a student-athlete, but challenges equaled the opportunity to excel. The opportunities that I was given, I would pass on to those that I work with. I had the honor and privilege for 33 years to serve with some of the brightest and most dedicated people in the world who put on the nation's cloth voluntarily to go into harm's way to make sure we are protected day in and day out. With them, I take what I learned here [at Yale], which is teamwork. We win the Ivy League championships, we go to battle, and we battle life obstacles, as a team, whether that be your family team, your Yale teammates, or this room full of people tonight who are staying together as an organization working for common goals. It's being part of something bigger than you, and it is so rewarding."

Frank Shorter '69
On why he chose Yale: "I always looked for mentors growing up. When I was in prep school in Western Massachusetts, the best runner on our cross country team, his father was a law professor at Yale," said Shorter. "I learned from him the quality of the school in terms of athletics because of the coach who was here and the Olympic athletes who had gone to Yale. The other part of it was the academic side that I wanted to go to a place where in a sense I can try and find out how well I could do not only athletically but academically. I felt I could achieve both [at Yale].

Peter Salovey '86 Ph.D.
On the importance of intercollegiate athletics: "I think Yale is a university that takes great pride in educating leaders for all sectors of society anywhere in the world. Those leaders have to learn the characteristics that have been described by my fellow award winners; grit, teamwork, friendship, dealing with winning and losing, failure and success, stick-to-itiveness, resilience, you can go on."

"Athletics does something for all the rest of us, for those who are often more on the spectator side than on the [playing surface]," Salovey continued. "That is something that does something to us psychologically. "Basking in reflective glory. When good things happen to others, where we share an identity, we are all Bulldogs, and when those individuals perform incredible excellence, perhaps even win, we share in that. We feel good about ourselves; our self-esteem is raised. That's what it means to bask in reflective glory and that is a great gift that [student] athletes give to a community, particularly in this community when you put on a blue or white uniform with a Y on it and we get to cheer you and live those moments with you."