So is the willingness to attempt something that may not work.
A student can be mediocre in one environment and extraordinary in another.
Letterman's own life provided a compelling example.
The Importance of the Right Teacher
There is another lesson buried inside the scholarship story.
Letterman did not describe his college transformation as something he accomplished entirely alone.
He credited a teacher.
Professor Darrell Wible saw him at a point when Letterman, by his own account, was barely a C student with little productive direction.
Wible introduced him to broadcasting.
That relationship changed the course of Letterman's life.
It raises an important question:
How many students who appear average are actually waiting for the right subject or mentor?
Education is filled with stories of young people who seem disengaged until something suddenly fits.
For one student it might be coding.
For another, filmmaking.
For someone else, engineering, journalism, music, design, entrepreneurship or research.
The discovery can change everything.
Letterman's scholarship effectively creates another opportunity for that discovery to be recognized.
Not an Argument Against Academic Excellence
The story is sometimes shared online with a misleading implication: that Letterman created the scholarship because grades do not matter at all.
That is not what the official rules say.
Students still have to remain academically eligible.
And nothing in the program suggests that poor performance should be celebrated for its own sake.
The more accurate message is stronger.
Grades matter, but they are not the only thing that matters.
A scholarship system can recognize academic excellence while another recognizes creativity.
Those ideas do not conflict.
They acknowledge that students possess different strengths.
A university should have room for both.
The Student Behind the Number
Imagine two students.
One has an almost perfect academic record.
The other has average grades but spends nights writing scripts, producing short films, recording audio projects or experimenting with ideas that do not fit neatly into a classroom assignment.
Traditional academic awards are likely to favor the first student.
And there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
The Letterman scholarship asks a different question about the second one:
What if we're missing something?
What if average grades are hiding unusual talent?
What if the person who seems ordinary by conventional measurements becomes extraordinary once given the right opportunity?
Those are not hypothetical questions in Letterman's case.
The C student became David Letterman.
More Than Four Decades Later
The scholarship's longevity may be one of its strongest statements.
Letterman established it in the mid-1980s, and Ball State continued documenting its role decades afterward.
It became part of his broader legacy at the university alongside the David Letterman Communication and Media Building, WCRD and the lecture series he supported.
But the scholarship carries perhaps the simplest message of all those contributions.
Talent does not always arrive with an A attached to it.
Sometimes it is sitting quietly in the middle of the class.
Sometimes it is making strange videos after school.
Sometimes it is writing something no teacher assigned.
Sometimes it is experimenting, failing and trying again.
And sometimes it belongs to someone who has not yet realized what he or she is good at.
Average Grades Do Not Mean an Average Future
David Letterman could have created another conventional academic scholarship.
He could have rewarded students with the highest GPAs.
Instead, he established one where the formal rules explicitly said grades were not to determine the winner beyond basic academic eligibility.
Creativity would.
Writing could matter.
Film could matter.
Audio could matter.
Research could matter.
An original idea could matter.
Nearly everything about Letterman's later career suggests why that distinction meant something to him.
He knew what it was like to be a student whose transcript did not predict what would come next.
He knew what it was like for a professor to recognize a direction he had not yet fully recognized himself.
And once he became successful, he helped create a system where another student might receive the same kind of chance.
Not because that student was at the top of the class.
Because that student had something worth creating.
That is the real lesson behind the so-called scholarship for C students.
It is not that grades are meaningless.
It is that human potential is larger than a report card.
A student can struggle academically and still become a remarkable writer.
An average test taker can become an exceptional filmmaker.
Someone who never appears near the top of a class ranking can become a broadcaster, artist, entrepreneur or innovator.
Letterman's own trajectory made that difficult to ignore.
He once described himself as barely a C student.
Decades later, the university where he earned those grades named a major communications building after him.
And through the scholarship he created, generations of students have been given an opportunity to prove that sometimes the most important question is not:
“What grade did you get?”
It is:
“What can you do?”
Sometimes a C really is just a C.
And sometimes average grades are only the first chapter of a future nobody knows how to grade yet.
Sources
Ball State University — Letterman Telecommunications Scholarship Application: Official scholarship rules stating that grades are not to be used as a criterion for eligibility, evaluation or consideration beyond minimum enrollment requirements, and that scholarships are awarded primarily on creativity. The document also lists eligible creative formats and the $10,000, $5,000 and $3,333 award structure.
Ball State University — “David Letterman, Ball State remember beloved professor Darrell Wible,” August 8, 2013: Contains Letterman's own statement that he was “barely a ‘C’ student” at Ball State and credits professor Darrell Wible with introducing him to broadcasting and changing his life.
Ball State University — “Back on Campus with David Letterman,” August 28, 2007: Documents Letterman's broadcasting background at Ball State, his career and the annual Letterman scholarships for telecommunications students.
Ball State University — “Ball State Names New Building After Famous Alumnus,” July 2007: Details the Letterman Scholarships, examples of creative submissions and the university's decision to name the communication and media building after him.
Ball State University — About David Letterman: Official university history of Letterman's continuing support for Ball State, including the scholarships, WCRD student radio station and communication building bearing his name.
Ball State University — Letterman Speaker Series: Documents Letterman's additional financial support for a lecture and workshop series and his continuing involvement with the university.
The Washington Post — October 17, 1990: Contemporary reporting describing the Letterman scholarship's unusual approach toward C-average and non-straight-A students.
ABC News — “Think Like Letterman, Win College Tuition”: Reporting on the Letterman Scholarship and its emphasis on creative ideas rather than conventional academic distinction.