Benedictine Student Reacts to Butker Speech

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Scott Vordiez. We played Harrison Butker'sspeech in its entirety to kick off this
hour because everyone's been talking about it, and I don't think anyone, I
don't think hardly anyone's taken the opportunityto listen to it. And we've heard
all the perspectives of people who thoughtit was great. Harrison Butker's jersey is

(00:20):
the number one selling jersey in theNFL this week, and certainly you've heard
from a lot of people who hatehis guts and think he should be off
the team, like he shouldn't beallowed to kick because he's registered. These
opinions. Well, speaking to thisschool, but let's drill down a little
bit deeper here and talk with oneof the students at this school, Benedictine

(00:41):
College in Atchinson, Kansas. Hername is Mikayla, and she joins us
now on news radio eleven ten Kfaband Mikayla, good morning. Thank you
very much for being on the radiowith us this morning. Yeah, thanks
for having met you are in Omaha, girl, you're back in town for
the summer. Congratulations on wrapping upwhat you're somore year. I think,
yes, sophomore excellent. I Uh, I've got lots of questions, like

(01:06):
all of your annoying relatives, thatgoes, so what are you gonna do?
Mikaela, how's school going? Youget a whole summer of that.
But I want to talk to youabout this speech by the kicker for the
Chiefs. Uh did anyone say anythingbefore? I mean, you get an
announcement that Butker is going to comespeak at graduation? Did anyone think anything

(01:27):
of this? Was there a buzzaround campus? Did anyone even care?
Everybody cared? So we are betweenSaint Joe and Kansas City, So I'm
not I'm a Packers fan, buteveryone in Kansas is obviously a Chiefs fan.
And if you have a three timeSuper Bowl champ come in to talk

(01:49):
at the commencement, that's a bigdeal. So everyone was really hyped and
there was a huge buzz for it. You know, there's certainly from an
NFL standpoint, you've got the SuperBowl champion there with all of his rings,
Harrison Butker. But did anyone knowabout his political or religious leanings?
Was that? Did that come upin any conversations? Yes? I think

(02:14):
it totally did. Because he hasvoiced his strong Catholic belief before, and
everyone was just really excited to justhave a Catholic speaker at the commencement.
And I just thought it was reallycool that he just talked so strongly on
Catholic values. And I think alot of my classmates agree. Yeah,

(02:38):
it's he's had never made a secretof it. He hasn't hid it or
anything like that. I don't knowif this is the first time he's given
a commencement address. But when yousay everyone, we should take a look
at the student population of Benedictine.Yes, it is a Catholic school,
but it doesn't mean that every singlestudent there is Catholic, no more so
than Jesuit Catholics at Creighton or luthEnds at Midland. It is a school

(03:01):
that provides a wide ranging education.How does the Catholicism aspect come into play
here with the day to day educationthat one gets at Benedicting. Yes,
so, just like any other Catholicschool, their daily Mass all the time,

(03:23):
but it's not required to go toso you can be as involved or
uninvolved as you want. So that'spretty cool. And then we just have
every week there's just always some sortof different activity to enrich your faith life,
which is awesome. And then everyWednesday morning, this is something super

(03:46):
cool that I've never heard of anyother Catholic school doing, is our president
of our college, Steve Minutes,praise the Rosary with students at seven point
thirty before their eight am classes everysingle week. He leads it. And
it's just awesome to have our president, who speaking on living a strong Catholic
lifestyle, actually lead by example.Like you just said, not everyone there

(04:13):
is Catholic majority is, but wedo have about two hundred or two thousand
students at school, eight hundred ofwhich are roughly athletes. So you do
just have the people who come justplay sports, which is totally fine.
But there's definitely a mutual respect andthere's no hard feelings. If someone's not

(04:34):
Catholic, it's the Catholic school andvice versa. See a lot of people
would never agree with that. Theythink that, oh, if you don't
show up and pray the Rosary withthe school president at seven thirty on Wednesdays,
that you're not going to pass yourclasses, you'll be ostracized. Some
of these same people apparently support theprotest that ostracize Jewish students across the country.

(04:56):
But I digress. But you know, we have this going on at
Benedictine. Benedictine, You've got theCatholic school, You've got the opportunity if
you so wish to be as involvedas you want in the religious aspects.
You got a lot of athletes there, Harrison Bucker made specific mention of the
football team. He should have mentionedthe track team, which you're a part

(05:18):
of. But for this speech,I mean, you heard the applause at
the end of the graduation. Iheard standing ovation by so many students I've
heard from. I've heard from onestudent who spoke to the media said she
didn't like it. You've had achance to talk with your classmates and a

(05:38):
lot of these graduating seniors who werethere. MICHAELA. What do you get
as the sense of what people thinkabout Butcker's speech and the fact that your
school, Benedictine in Atchison, Kansas, is in the news all week.
Yeah, so definitely now just beinga smaller school, when I tell people

(05:59):
I go to been Edictin, they'renot going to ask where it is.
So I mean that's definitely a hugepositive of everything. But yeah, everyone
loved it. Everyone was just proudof it. And also he was speaking
to a group of young Catholic adultsand speaking on the values and the morals

(06:24):
and just setting the standard of whatthe rest of your life should look like
as a Catholic. Everyone, no, everyone I talked to had no issues
with it. And yeah, therewas one person who disagreed with it,
But at the same time, it'shard to please everyone all the time.

(06:44):
Sure, and she disagreed with it, respectfully from what I heard. You
know, she she didn't appreciate it. She let a few people know around
her, she didn't appreciate it.She didn't join the stay in ovation perfectly
fine. The response from people saying, well, Bucker should be kicked out
of the NFL, and there area lot of women saying, you know,
how dare he demean working women?Well, that's not what I heard

(07:08):
him. Do we actually listened tothe speech here. There are people right
now saying, well, Harrison,Butker wouldn't let you, Michaela come on
the radio unless some man gave youpermission to do so. I don't see
it that way. So you gota lot of young women at this school
here, I mean, no,one hardly anyone heard those words and thought,

(07:33):
oh, I got to forego mycareer and go find me a man
like Harrison, butcker get married andstart kicking babies out. Uh huh.
Yeah. So I definitely do.Just think the media blew it ups and
all we're seeing just everywhere on themedia is that he said women belong in
the kitchen and like that phrase wasnever said. He actually, you know,

(07:59):
just I know you just played it. But he was congratulated the women,
and then he told them that hewas proud, and he was speaking
up about his wife who raised hisfamily and saying he could do nothing without
her. He got emotional during itand actually had to pause his speech,
and in that time you heard theapplause from the crowd. So just a

(08:24):
family guy. And then even afterwards, no one's talking about that. But
then he encouraged men to be masculineand to be a man. So he
talked to both everyone in the crowdand just encouraged everyone to do their vocation
and to do it the best theycan. I'm going to try and be

(08:45):
more manly based on the guidance thereof Harrison. Butker, it's it's gonna
on one hand, like I've gotvideos of me out, you know,
shooting these fantastic rifles the other day. On the other hand, I own
nearly every single album by Enya,So I mean there's a definite seesaw effect
going on here. I want toask you to speak to that. Mikayla.

(09:05):
I really appreciate you coming on theradio this morning to talk about some
of this reaction you're getting from youand your classmates have been edict I'm saying
Benedictine. You say Benedictine. Okay, in Atchison, Kansas. It's certainly
on the map now. As yousaid, I hope you have a wonderful

(09:26):
summer. Will you be going backto the Benedictine in the fall? Yes,
of course, I love it there. All right, thank you very
much for being on the radio heretoday. I know you've got a lot
to do this summer. I hopeyou have a wonderful time. The back
to school sales won't start for acouple more weeks, so you're good,
Okay, all right, thanks Mikayla, appreciate it. Thank you. That

(09:48):
is a Benedictine student, Mikayla hereon news radio eleven ten kfab graduates from
d'uville University in Buffalo. We're nothappy that Sophia was there graduation speaker this
week. Sophia is a humanoid artificialintelligence robot. They said, our high
school and college careers have been marredby AI and virtual and remote this,

(10:11):
and that we many of us won'thave jobs to go to because it's all
being taken over by AI, andour commencement speaker is a robot. We
feel disrespected by this decision. Ofcourse, they use chat GPT to come
up with that response, so itwasn't just Butker this week. And I'm
going to play the entire commencement addressedby Sophia coming up now. I'm kidding.

(10:35):
Scott Voices mornings nine to eleven,Our News Radio eleven ten kfab