Early Life and Education
Stephanopoulos was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, to Greek immigrants, Robert George and Nickolitsa ("Nikki") Gloria (née Chafos) Stephanopoulos. His father is a Greek Orthodox priest and Dean Emeritus of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York City, and his mother was for many years director of the national news service of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Young George also became a follower of his parents' faith and long considered entering the priesthood himself.
Following some time in Purchase, New York, Stephanopoulos attended suburban Cleveland, Ohio's Orange High School, where he wrestled competitively. In 1982, he received his bachelor of arts degree in political science from Columbia University in New York, where he was a sports broadcaster for WKCR-FM, the university's radio station. Stephanopoulos was the salutatorian of his class and was also awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.
Stephanopoulos's father always wanted his son to become a lawyer, if not a priest. Promising him he would attend law school eventually, George took a job as an aide to Cleveland congressman Ed Feighan in Washington, D.C.. Though he rose to Feighan's chief of staff, Stephanopoulos agreed to cede to his father's wishes and attend law school if he succeeded in a second attempt to earn a Rhodes Scholarship after having been rejected for the Rhodes Scholarship during his senior year at Columbia. He earned a M.A. in Theology at Balliol College. He maintains he spent much of his time trying to root his political leanings in the deeper philosophies that he studied there.
Read more about this topic: George Stephanopoulos
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret’s nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)