“Many think that the short term gain will be worth the long term pain, but it isn’t. In addition, using steroids is cheating, and there is nothing worse in a sports than a cheater. Don't do it”

George Mitchell

Mitchell was born in Waterville, Maine. His father, George John Mitchell, Sr. was of ethnic Irish descent but was adopted by a Lebanese family when he was orphaned. Mitchell's father was a janitor at Colby College in Waterville, where Mitchell was raised. Mitchell's mother, Mary was a textile worker who emigrated to the United States in 1920 from Bkassine, Lebanon, at the age of eighteen. Because of his origin, Mitchell is recognized as a prominent Arab-American. He is currently Penn State's Athletic Integrity Monitor.Mitchell was raised a Maronite Catholic and in his childhood served as an altar boy at St. Joseph's Maronite Church in Maine. Throughout junior high school and high school, Mitchell worked as a janitor. In a family of five children, all three of Mitchell's brothers were athletes and though a talented student, as a child, he found himself overshadowed by his brothers' athletic achievements. After having performed well academically at Georgetown, Mitchell served as a trial attorney for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington from 1960 to 1962, and then as executive assistant to Senator Edmund S. Muskie from 1962 to 1965, where he first gained interest in the political world.Afterwards, Mitchell practiced law in Portland, Maine, from 1965 to 1977 and was assistant county attorney for Cumberland County, Maine, in 1971.