2DkcTXceO

47Personal reflections on the COPSSPresidents’ AwardRaymond J. CarrollDepartment of StatisticsTexas A&M University, College Station, TX47.1 The facts of the awardI received the COPSS Presidents’ Award in 1988, one year after Jeff Wu andone year before Peter Hall. I was the eighth recipient.I had just moved to Texas A&M in fall 1987, and did not know that CliffSpiegelman, also still at Texas A&M, had nominated me. I remember veryclearly being told about this honor. I was working at home, and out of theblue I received a phone call from the head of the Presidents’ Award Committee,about a month before the Joint Statistical Meetings in New Orleans, and heasked, roughly, “are you going to the JSM in New Orleans?” I actually hadnot planned on it, and he told me I probably should since I had won thePresidents’ Award. I remember being very happy, and I know I took the restof the day off and just floated around.I am not by nature a very reflective person, preferring instead to lookahead and get on with the next project. However, the invitation to write forthe COPSS 50th Anniversary Book Project motivated me to reflect a bit onwhat I had done prior to 1988, and if there were any morals to the story thatIcouldshare.47.2 PersistencePersistence I have. My first six submitted papers were rejected, and some ina not very nice way. Having rejected two of my papers, the then-Editor ofThe Annals of Statistics wrote to tell me that he thought I had no possibilityof a successful career in academics, and that I would be better off going into571