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:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“One perceives that again and again she has destroyed her life when it was forming into shapes of happiness because of her loyalty to the early misery, her conviction that that has the sanction of ultimate reality, and that beside it all other things are trivial.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“What education is to the individual man, revelation is to the human race. Education is revelation coming to the individual man, and revelation is education that has come, and is still coming to the human race.”
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)