Keynote speaker Frank Deford addresses the audience of the Daniel Webster College graduation ceremony Saturday.

Facing staggering odds as it was, Frank Deford didn’t help himself by wearing the wrong-colored suit.

Delivering the keynote commencement address Saturday at Daniel Webster College in Nashua, Deford related a lunch-counter conversation he once had in Chicago with the late Harland Sanders, the Colonel Sanders icon of the KFC fast-food franchise.

As he finished a breakfast of oatmeal gruel, Sanders looked like God, said Deford, senior writer at Sports

Illustrated and a man renowned as one of the nation’s most honored sportswriters.

They had a friendly chat, and as Sanders rose to leave, he said he’d tell Deford the single greatest piece of advice he could impart.

“This is like Moses and the tablets,” Deford thought.

“If you want people to listen to you,” Sanders told the sportswriter, “wear a white suit.”

A survey revealed that 99.7 of college graduates can’t remember any pearls of wisdom from the speeches at their graduations, Deford said. That breaks down to only 23 out of roughly 10,000 people graduating from the nation’s colleges this May, he said.

As he stood before the 210 graduates at Daniel Webster College’s 40th commencement, Deford noted he blew his chances by wearing a dark blue gown.

The commencement ceremony, however, proved memorable in ways besides Deford’s address.

For example, this was the first time the college’s valedictory remarks were given by an evening student. Patrick Gallagher of Nashua started college in 1981, but left to get a full-time job and start a family.

He returned in 2000 to get a degree in business management, for which he credited the tuition credits offered by his employer, Amphenol Corp., formerly Teradyne.

Staff photo by Peter Dicampo Daniel Webster College valedictorian Patrick Gallagher of Nashua addresses his fellow graduates at the college’s commencement ceremony Saturday

Also, the class of 2006 included the largest number of U.S. Air Force ROTC graduates in more than 15 years. Eight graduates are either commissioned officers or will soon be commissioned. All will enter Air Force training programs as second lieutenants.

Air Force Lt. Col. Charles Olander called the class of young officers the finest he’s had the privilege to work with.

The commencement was dedicated to the memory of Donald Fagan, who died recently after serving for 31 years on the college’s faculty.

Anyone who had “Faganomics” will remember the late professor for “his savvy, his wit and his extraordinary kindness,” said Kathleen Fitzpatrick, who served as faculty platform marshal for the ceremonies.

College President Robert Myers noted Fagan’s mischievous sense of humor.

“When I think about Don, I think about one of the original Little Rascals growing up to be Mr. Chips,” Myers said.

William Kilday, the senior class speaker, reminded his classmates that “College is about three things: hard work, good friends and great memories.”

The computer science major from Vermont added, “The real wealth is the memories you share with them. The real reward of college is the experience.”

Mixing humor with a serious message – or perhaps vice versa – Deford warned graduates not to be part of a “generation overwhelmed by amusement.”

He asked two favors of the graduates: “Don’t watch too much television, and number 2, do read more.”

Deford said President Eisenhower had it wrong when he warned of the military-industrial complex.

“It’s the entertainment-amusement complex that we have the most to fear today,” said Deford, who served for 16 years as chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Referring to the T.S. Eliot quote that the world will end “not with a bang, but a whimper,” Deford said, “What frightens me is that the United States will end because no one is paying attention. We’ll all be watching ‘Monday Night Football’ and ‘American Idol.’ ”