Interview on ESPN.com With George J. Tanber

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Hi. How are you?

QUESTION: I'm fine. How are you doing today?

SECRETARY RICE: Just fine, thank you.

QUESTION: Well, I thought we'd take a little break from foreign affairs and talk sports. How's that?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) Sounds like a good idea to me. Great, great.

QUESTION: I know you're a big fan. Just real quick. This is a series I'm doing for ESPN.com for black history month and I've interviewed a variety of people. I just did Dr. David Satcher, the former Surgeon General.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, sure. Surgeon General, right.

QUESTION: That's going to run today.

SECRETARY RICE: Great.

QUESTION: He's a big football fan, too.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, is he really? That's great, yeah.

QUESTION: I'm just going to do a few background questions of things I've read that I want to confirm and then I'll ask you -- get to the main questions.

SECRETARY RICE: Okay.

QUESTION: Your father John was a former high school football coach in the Birmingham area?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, high school football coach and athletic director in Birmingham. By the time I was three or four, he was no longer coaching, but he'd coached years before that.

QUESTION: Okay. And then I understand that you and your father used to play a little Thanksgiving Day football game and call it the "Rice Bowl." Is that true?

SECRETARY RICE: The "Rice Bowl," we did. (Laughter.) Absolutely right.

QUESTION: Okay. And I've read on several occasions where you've joked that your father had hoped you'd be his little middle linebacker. Is that something he said?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, he did. He did.

QUESTION: You were an only child?

SECRETARY RICE: I was an only child. He bought the football by the time I was born.

QUESTION: Had the ball.

SECRETARY RICE: Had the football, got a girl.

QUESTION: Okay. And I know you played the piano at a young age three?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: And sang in your father's church choir at age four?

SECRETARY RICE: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: And how old were you when you started watching the Browns games with your father?

SECRETARY RICE: The first game I remember was the great Baltimore-New York Giants championship game and --

QUESTION: Oh, 1959?

SECRETARY RICE: Right. So I was five.

QUESTION: Okay, five.

SECRETARY RICE: But I started watching before that, but that's my game that's most memorable for me.

QUESTION: Okay, watched before that.

SECRETARY RICE: I started watching from the time I was probably three or so.

QUESTION: How is it that you became a Browns fan, you and your father?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, Birmingham didn't have a team, of course, and we got the Browns almost every Sunday. I think it was because of Jim Brown and Paul Brown. And so I just got accustomed to pulling for the Browns.

QUESTION: And are you still -- is that still your team?

SECRETARY RICE: I've come back to the Browns. I've been on a journey in between because when the Browns were -- when the Browns left -- when Paul Brown was fired by Art Modell, I followed Paul Brown to the Bengals.

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY RICE: And I was a Bengal fan for a long time and, on the side, a Denver Bronco fan because I was living in Denver.

QUESTION: Well, I was going to ask you about that because I know your father taught at the university.

SECRETARY RICE: Right, right.

QUESTION: And the team used to hang out at the house, right?

SECRETARY RICE: That's right. And so I was a Denver Bronco fan for a while. And then what brought me back to the Browns was that when I was out in San Francisco -- believe it or not, I never became a 49er fan, even through all those great years because I moved to San Francisco in '81 -- or to Palo Alto in '81, which was the 49ers' first Super Bowl. But I got to know and became very good friends with Carmen Policy. And he was the president of the 49ers. He was a Stanford parent. We were very close friends. And then when he went back to found the new Browns, I decided I'd come full circle and so I'm back with my Browns now, for better or for worse. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Well, on that subject, they have the third pick in the draft. Who do you like?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, I hate to say this, but I'm just very anxious that they get the best athlete available because I think the Browns are not at a place that they have such great strength at any position, that they can position draft. I -- you know, if Kellen Winslow is going to be all right then of course you don't want to draft a tight end. But I think they're undersized at defensive back. They certainly need help on the offensive line. Probably need a quarterback, although I would prefer probably to do what the Ravens did and find a Steve McNair-like quarterback. So I would say draft the best athlete available.

QUESTION: Okay. Maybe a stupid question, since you come from Alabama, Birmingham, but your favorite college team?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) Well, Stanford, right?

QUESTION: Okay. But you went to Notre Dame also.

SECRETARY RICE: Stanford, Notre -- Stanford, except when -- Notre Dame except when they're playing Stanford. Stanford's number one. And Alabama, unless they're playing Stanford or Notre Dame. But I am -- I do like the Tide alot. I'm an Alabama fan, too.

QUESTION: Okay. So in order, Stanford, Notre Dame, Alabama.

SECRETARY RICE: Stanford, Notre Dame, Alabama.

QUESTION: Okay. We talked a little bit about Denver. And I know you -- the players would come to the house. What did you enjoy about that experience?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, in -- my father had gotten to know some of the guys and it was just nice. You know, they were -- my mother treated them like part of the family, so it was -- and I had very good friends and my friend, Haven Moses and his wife, Joyce were really close friends. Louis Wright and his wife, Vicky Wright, that was sort of nice to hear --

QUESTION: You got to talk football and -- you got to talk football.

SECRETARY RICE: And you got to talk football, that's right.

QUESTION: They probably were surprised -- were they surprised at your knowledge?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, everybody always is. They don't understand that I probably would have written several more books if I -- had it not been for the NFL on Sunday. I never miss the NFL on Sunday.

QUESTION: I understand you golf. Do you have a handicap?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I just -- I'm a year in. I'm still at the point that if I hit it pretty straight down the fairway and can get onto the green to putt, I'm happy.

QUESTION: And I know you did some skating at one time. Did you skate very long or did you ever consider it a profession?

SECRETARY RICE: I competed for five years and pretty seriously; I skated for the Denver Figure Skating Club.

QUESTION: Denver Figure Skating?

SECRETARY RICE: Uh-huh, which was a very strong skating club, but I was a very mediocre skater in a very competitive region. But I loved it and I've always thought that the problem was that I actually ended up in the wrong sport. I was -- I'm five-foot-eight. I've got five-foot-ten legs and figure skating probably wasn't the best sport for me. I remember when I picked up a tennis racket for the first time, I thought, "Oh, this is what I should have done."

QUESTION: Well, hard to look back on that, but it's always interesting --

SECRETARY RICE: It was still great. I loved it. It was -- figure skating is a great discipline, you know, because in those days, they even did -- we did school figures, so you had to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and go to the rink and -- before school and then go to school and usually come back to the rink after. So it was a great discipline and I don't regret it in the least. I loved it.

QUESTION: I understand up to a few years ago, you had never missed a Super Bowl. Is that record intact?

SECRETARY RICE: I have never -- still never missed a Super Bowl. I had to wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning in Israel a couple of years ago to see the kickoff to keep my string alive, but I have still never missed a Super Bowl.

QUESTION: Way to go. Okay, now I'm going to go on to the -- a little more serious question.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: How important were athletics in the integration of America, in your view?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I think athletics were extremely important in the integration of America because I think that some of the great barrier-breakers, people -- you know, everybody talks about Jackie Robinson, of course. But I would go back before that, somebody like Jesse Owens; I think these were transcendent figures in many ways. It didn't lead immediately to the breakdown of discrimination by any means and in fact, these are people who themselves experienced discrimination. But I do think that everybody could get behind Althea Gibson and, a little bit later, everybody loved Arthur Ashe.

And so these people who, in a sense, transcended and -- so that people didn't just see race; they saw somebody that they admired, somebody that they wanted to be. I've heard people say, you know, "I wanted to be Willie Mays," and that's great. So I think it's - it was very important, and very important in our history.

QUESTION: This is something that'll interest you because I know you had -- you were involved in the hiring of Dennis Green and Coach Willingham.

SECRETARY RICE: And Ty Willingham, yeah.

QUESTION: So this relates to that subject. African Americans have made great strides on the playing fields and in the coaching and managerial ranks in professional sports, but they lag behind in administrative positions and in college, only 7 out of 119 --

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- Division I football coaches are African American --

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- and six percent of women's basketball coaches.

SECRETARY RICE: Right.

QUESTION: What needs to happen for that to change?

SECRETARY RICE: People need to start looking outside their normal channels just -- and recognizing that talent is, you know, not necessarily just four phone calls to get the top candidates from four people that you know. Look, I know a little bit about recruiting college coaches and you can very easily fall into that. You know, you call five people and they tell you their top two or three candidates and you look up and none of them are African American. And so you have to push beyond the kind of normal channels. And I'm proud of the fact that Stanford had two black coaches and I'm very pleased and proud that I was involved in the hiring of both of them. And by the way, they were both enormously successful.

QUESTION: Well, yes, that's for sure. I mean, I think Coach Willingham is resurrecting the Washington program and Dennis Green might be back very soon.

SECRETARY RICE: That's right. And Stanford had not been to a Rose Bowl in 28 years and Ty Willingham --

QUESTION: I heard you were at that game.

SECRETARY RICE: Of course, of course. And Ty Willingham got them there.

QUESTION: On the subject of football again, you once said being NFL Commissioner is your dream job. Why?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, because I think there's no more interesting and in a sense better-run institution than the NFL. When I look at the way that the NFL has made football really the national sport -- I know I have a lot of friends, maybe even the President, who would disagree in favor of baseball --

QUESTION: Numbers don't lie, do they?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, and I just think that when you think on any Sunday during the season you can go to San Francisco or Miami or Green Bay or Baltimore and you will have essentially the same experience with a little local flavor, and the use of television, you know, for which Pete Rozelle, of course, deserves enormous credit for kind of recognizing -- it's a sense football and television came of age together and it's -- so I just think it's a really important national institution, the NFL.

Now that said, I've decided that it would be all right to run a team as well.

QUESTION: Oh, really?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, that would be a good job as well.

QUESTION: So run a team as an owner or the president?

SECRETARY RICE: No, as a president.

QUESTION: Okay.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to own a team.

QUESTION: Well, we have Roger Goodell in now so he's going to be there --

SECRETARY RICE: I met him. I met him just a little -- a few weeks ago and I told him I understood he now had that job. Unfortunately, my ship came in too early and I wasn't ready to move.

QUESTION: In the wake of perpetual off-field troubles for a number of its players, the league is considering a three strikes and you're out policy. This is just in the last few days there have been talk about that. You've probably heard that. Do you have any thoughts on that?

SECRETARY RICE: Not really. I think this is something, you know, the league has to look at. You know, obviously these are people whose images are important not just to the league but to the nation, and so -- but I don't have a view of what they ought to do.

QUESTION: That's fine. Again, how do you key it with your schedule, and you're such a huge fan? How do you keep up with the sport these days? What do you do?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, Sunday afternoons are usually fairly reliable as time that I can do something for myself, and so I generally go to church and then I watch an NFL game. And if there's a game that I'm going to miss for some reason, I'll usually TiVo it and watch it when I can. And since I don't mind watching a game even if I know the score --

QUESTION: You don't?

SECRETARY RICE: No, I don't. I don't mind at all.

QUESTION: Because you like to -- what? You watch more than just the game itself?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah. Oh yes, I really enjoy -- I think because I've watched it for so long and because my father really understood the strategy, I can watch a game from the perspective of what really is going on strategically so I can enjoy and really do enjoy a defensive battle probably more than a high-scoring game.

QUESTION: The New York Yankees are opening a training facility in China. The NBA and NFL are continuing to penetrate the world market. Good or bad for the United States and American sports, and why?

SECRETARY RICE: I think it's very good for the United States and for American sports because it's a good thing when people get to know America through more than its government or its policy. I'm a big believer, when people say, "How do you change the image or improve the image of the United States abroad," I don't think that that is largely going to be for the government to do. I think the universities play their role and musicians and artists play their role and sports play their role. And in places like China in particular where they just love sports, they just love sports, I think that having American leagues go there and do things -- and I hope they'll do things with kids as well -- it's great.

QUESTION: How do you use your knowledge of sports, especially professional football, in conversations with the President, male cabinet members, and other people you deal with while working? You know, it is the great icebreaker.

SECRETARY RICE: It is a great icebreaker. Well, everyone knows how much I love it, so it's just part of the conversation. You know, it's just part of talking -- the President and I share a love of sports. I think for him baseball is probably number one, two, three, four and five. But I love to go in and give him a hard time about the Texas Longhorns. Of course, they've been pretty good lately so --

QUESTION: Yeah.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: Do you talk soccer with European leaders? Are you up to speed on that?

SECRETARY RICE: Not really. I know that it's a beautiful game, but I don't really understand it.

QUESTION: Do they know your love of sports? Do they ever ask you about American sports?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, sure. I talk about sports all the time. Some of my colleagues are particularly big sports fans. Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister of Australia, is a huge sports fan. Taro Aso, the Japanese Foreign Minister, is a big sports fan. Peter MacKay, the Foreign Minister of Canada, is a huge sports fan and we also share a love of hockey.

QUESTION: You like hockey?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, yeah.

QUESTION: What's your hockey team?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm a big fan of the Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks, the two teams that I follow.

QUESTION: That would make sense for that.

SECRETARY RICE: Mm-hmm. I used to go see -- I used to go to a Sharks game several times a year when I lived in northern California.

QUESTION: Okay. Well, Jim Brown I know is someone you admired growing up. He was obviously a great Browns player. And he said recently that he believes some African American football players in the NFL are an embarrassment because of their on-the-field antics, giving credibility, he believes, to racist stereotypes. Do you have any thoughts on that?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't know. That's kind of harsh. I've just always liked -- it's attributed to, I think, Paul Brown when he said, you know, when you get to the end zone, look as if you've been there before. So I'm probably on the more purist side about demonstrations and, you know, the dances. Although I was a fan of the -- you know, the Ickey Woods.

QUESTION: Oh, the shuffle?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, the shuffle.

QUESTION: You know that was --

SECRETARY RICE: I know, that really dates me, doesn't it?

QUESTION: Well, that was kind of harmless. The shuffle was kind of benign compared, I guess, to what you see today.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, right.

QUESTION: Okay, just three more quick questions.

SECRETARY RICE: Okay.

QUESTION: Name an African American athlete, past or present, you admire and why?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, okay. Well, there are a lot.

QUESTION: There are many.

SECRETARY RICE: There are very, very many. So can I name a couple?

QUESTION: You can name two.

SECRETARY RICE: All right. I admire Doug Williams for what he did as -- I think he broke -- you know, Warren Moon was a great quarterback, but I think Doug Williams, by winning that Super Bowl, broke through the stereotypes about black quarterbacks in a very important way.

And I'm afraid they're all going to be past because I'm getting -- past players because I'm getting old and that's what happens when you get older.

And I think Art Monk, who I just think did everything quietly and with class and, you know, as a result, may not get the adulation that I think he deserves.

QUESTION: Now we're talking Hall of Fame.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: I don't know, I keep thinking that one of these years he's going to get it. I lived in Washington during the era so I know what you're saying.

SECRETARY RICE: Right, yeah. I mean, he had just incredible class.

QUESTION: So you're a star athlete. Name the sport and your dream moment.

SECRETARY RICE: In my own athletic career?

QUESTION: No.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh. Say that again?

QUESTION: You're a star athlete and this is imaginary. You're a star athlete, so name the sport and your dream moment.

SECRETARY RICE: All right.

QUESTION: Had you been --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Well, actually, there's an actual one, but I'll just name it. Hitting the winning 3-pointer in game six of the NBA championships in front of a stunned crowd in Utah. Who does that sound like?

QUESTION: That sounds like Michael Jordan.

SECRETARY RICE: I always thought it was one of the great last moments of any sport anytime that I've ever seen.

QUESTION: I think I agree with that one.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: Well, this one might overlap the last one because it's your favorite sports moment either as a participant or a fan.

SECRETARY RICE: Well --

QUESTION: I mean, the last moment was your favorite moment you viewed as a fan or that's something you have dreamed you would --

SECRETARY RICE: Oh no, my favorite moment that I viewed as a fan was quite different. Stanford, Sweet 16, St. Louis, 1997, Stanford comes back from 11 down with a minute 34 to play to beat Rhode Island and to go to the Final Four. And I was provost and I got to go out and cut down a piece of the net.

QUESTION: Now, that had to be beautiful.

SECRETARY RICE: That was great, yeah.

QUESTION: I thought you might go back to the Willingham Rose Bowl, but this sounds --

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we lost though.

QUESTION: You lost the Rose Bowl.

SECRETARY RICE: We lost the Rose -- well -- oh, you mean the one where we -- the problem with the game that set us up was that it was one of those complicated things where we were playing Arizona State and UCLA had to lose to USC so we were watching one game on television. It's not a moment in quite the same way.

QUESTION: No, this one was definitely a moment.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: Were you out at Stanford for the game when the -- the Cal-Stanford?

SECRETARY RICE: I was. I was at that game. I was at Cal. The game was at Cal. And I was actually sitting in the end zone where the band was, and what I remember about that was, you know, we had the field goal to go ahead and what people forget is that would have been John Elway's one chance to go to a bowl game. And so we thought we won. They kicked off -- we kicked off. And Cal started that crazy play back up the field.

QUESTION: Coming towards you?

SECRETARY RICE: Coming towards me. And I remember saying to my friend who I still go to games with, I said, "You know, this game isn't over yet." And she said, "Oh, come on," you know, something like that. And sure enough, they kept running -- and his knee was down, by the way.

QUESTION: It was?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, it absolutely was down at about the 50. But anyway, they made it into the end zone, knocked over the trombone player and the whole business. And what I remember most about that was we stood in the stands and it seemed like forever before anybody knew whether or not they had scored. And I was watching the scoreboard and all of a sudden, the scoreboard just changed. You know, it was about three minutes after it had been over and I just couldn't believe it.

QUESTION: Well, you were on the losing side, but you were at a -- one of those moments in sports that there --

SECRETARY RICE: I was, I was.

QUESTION: You know, one of those rare moments.

SECRETARY RICE: That's right, that's right.

QUESTION: Well, I want to thank you very much for taking time to talk sports today.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, look, it was fun. It was fun.

QUESTION: We could talk forever, I'm sure.

SECRETARY RICE: We could, we could. I really enjoyed it.

QUESTION: Another day, another time.

SECRETARY RICE: Okay.

QUESTION: Take care now.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

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