Putting Sports Second

[leopard88]

I first heard about this during last week's Florida State-Boston College game. I think it is a very cool story and it is interesting to see a BCS-conference football player placing academics ahead of athletics (and the school letting/helping him do so).

From the New York Times --

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. ? By 5 p.m. on Saturday, Florida State safety Myron Rolle will find out if he is among the 32 winners of a Rhodes Scholarship, perhaps the world?s most prestigious postgraduate academic award.

At 7:45, Rolle?s Seminoles teammates will play at Maryland in a pivotal Atlantic Coast Conference matchup. Because Rolle?s final interview is in Birmingham, Ala., a private plane and about 700 miles will play an integral part in one of the most compelling story lines in college football this weekend.

Rolle?s decision to risk missing all or part of the game in order to be interviewed for the Rhodes Scholarship, and find out if he joins elite student-athletes like Bill Bradley in winning the Rhodes, has resonated deeply at Florida State. The university is in the final stages of dealing with an academic scandal in the athletic department that affected the eligibility of 60 athletes and resulted in three firings and self-imposed probation.

?He?s almost carrying a university and a football team right now, from a public relations standpoint, on his back,? the Florida State president, T. K. Wetherell, said Monday. ?That?s a pretty heavy burden to lay on somebody.?

Considering all that Rolle has achieved in his three years at Florida State, his dealing with the frenzy of Saturday is just another accomplishment in an academic and athletic career filled with them.

A native of Galloway, N.J., Rolle arrived at Florida State from the Hun School in Princeton as the country?s No. 1 football recruit. He has had an all-American-caliber junior season, but Rolle?s list of off-field accomplishments is as lengthy as it is daunting.

He graduated from Florida State in two and a half years with a degree in pre-med and a grade point average of 3.75. He is so studious that the Seminoles? defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews, publicly criticized him for studying too much last year, saying it affected Rolle?s preparation for football. Rolle said the criticism was a ?little unfair.?

?I gave him the benefit of the doubt,? Rolle said of Andrews. ?I don?t think he?s ever sat through an organic chemistry lecture and seen just how difficult it is. He?s been through a couple ballgames, but that?s a different arena right there.?

Outside of class, Rolle was awarded a $4,000 grant for cancer research over the summer, and also started a program to help educate Seminole Indian children in Okeechobee, Fla., about the importance of health and physical fitness. He belongs to a fraternity, helps tutor his teammates, has studied in London and has written for The New York Times.

As he has been deluged by interview requests this week ? including three reporters traveling with him on the plane to College Park ? Rolle said he welcomed carrying the brand of the university.

?I have no problem holding the weight of that on my shoulders,? he said. ?I think it?s more of a privilege and an honor than a burden.?

Those around Rolle say that he always has a plan. When Rolle arrived at the Hun School for his junior season of high school, he told the athletic director Bill Quirk his plan. He wanted to play big-time college football, graduate in three years, become a high N.F.L. draft pick, become a doctor and open a clinic to help needy people in the Bahamas, where he has family roots.

Quirk has marveled at how Rolle has stuck to that plan, and considers Rolle a ?once in a lifetime? student-athlete whose legacy resonates off the field as much as on it. He calls Rolle a role model for time management and remembers his spending hours tutoring his teammates.

?He had this endless clock where he never seemed to run out of time for helping people out,? Quirk said.

Tim Logan, a professor and chemistry and biochemistry at Florida State, said he recalled having two football players in class in 14 years there.

?The other one was a walk-on,? he said.

Logan said he did not know Rolle was in his class until Rolle approached him after class to see if a television station could tape one of his lectures for a segment it was doing on Rolle.

Logan then winced, because he is a football fan and had made a few disparaging remarks about the team?s performance. He apologized, and Rolle politely said that the comments had been ?killing me.?

Despite the digs, Rolle enjoyed Logan?s biochemistry class so much that he applied and was awarded a research grant to work with Logan over the summer. He spent three hours every morning studying the growth of proteins in different kinds of cancer. Rolle found himself so intrigued with the research that he occasionally went back at night, by himself, to do extra work.

?Myron has such a tremendous mind and intellect that it?s exciting to think about what he could do if he didn?t have all the distractions of football,? Logan said.

Along with extra research, Rolle is particularly proud of the project called Our Way to Health that he created to educate fifth-grade students at Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School, for Seminole Indians in Okeechobee.

The project was hatched when a group of Seminole students visited Florida State on a field trip to the state capitol in Tallahassee. Rolle spoke to them and was touched by the demeanor of the children. He approached a professor, Sally Karioth, about the project and started it with funding from Florida State.

Rolle?s program has been instituted in fifth-grade classes, which compete in teams in everything from physical fitness to ?Jeopardy?-style questions about diabetes and heart disease. The winning team was introduced on the field between quarters at Florida State?s game against Virginia Tech this year.

Rolle spent a week in Orlando last summer with tribe leaders, and he has twice taken the six-hour drive to Okeechobee to monitor the program?s progress. Karioth has a pile of thank-you letters written to her and Rolle from the students. They include everything from the confession of a converted Miami Hurricanes fan to the lyrics of an educational rap song a student wrote about the signs of a heart attack.

?That was the first time I got to feel I had changed the life of someone,? Rolle said.

On the field this year, Rolle?s play has improved to the point that Andrews said that Rolle was having as good a season as any safety who had played at the university. That is especially high praise considering Florida State?s history of success. Rolle has had the full support of the coaching staff to risk missing all or some of the game against Maryland on Saturday to be interviewed for the Rhodes Scholarship.

?In my 55 years coaching, I?ve never had one quite like him,? Coach Bobby Bowden said.

Rolle and all the Florida State administrators interviewed stressed that the competition for such an elite academic award was overwhelming. Of the 15 finalists in Birmingham on Saturday, only two will receive scholarships.

As the day unfolds, football fans will be watching to see if Rolle can help deliver huge victories for Florida State on and off the field.

I'll be pulling for him during his interview (but not if/when he makes it to Byrd Stadium -- )

[BB61]

Galloway -- w00t w00t.

Good for him. We need more people like him.

[tj4eck]

Awesome story about one of my favorite college football players.

Hope he does well in both aspects of this saturday.

[Sport]

Really makes you feel like . This guy is spending three hours a day as an incredibly talented athlete and still manages to possibly earn a Rhodes Scholar. Good on him, bad on me. Maybe I'll go for a jog later.

[fiasco!]

Really makes you feel like . This guy is spending three hours a day as an incredibly talented athlete and still manages to possibly earn a Rhodes Scholar. Good on him, bad on me. Maybe I'll go for a jog later.

Why would it make you feel like ? The story isn't about you.

[TFoA]

Now THAT'S impressive. Not only a very good football player in the highest level of college football, but a potential RHODES scholar? That's awesome.

lol @ his coordinator criticizing him for studying too much though.

[leopard88]

Really makes you feel like . This guy is spending three hours a day as an incredibly talented athlete and still manages to possibly earn a Rhodes Scholar. Good on him, bad on me. Maybe I'll go for a jog later.

Why would it make you feel like ? The story isn't about you.

Maybe "lazy" would be a better word than . Beyond that, I get what McCarthy is saying.

[ferrousoxide66]

Really makes you feel like . This guy is spending three hours a day as an incredibly talented athlete and still manages to possibly earn a Rhodes Scholar. Good on him, bad on me. Maybe I'll go for a jog later.

Why would it make you feel like ? The story isn't about you.

Let me guess, you were never on a shortlist for a Rhodes Scholarship yourself. Right?

[Brass]

Good on him!! Nice to see things like this.

At first, when I saw the subtitle for the topic, I thought leopard was serious. As someone who turned down a few scholarships to focus on academics, I wouldn't want to go through this again.

[TFoA]

So I googled the guy...

I will be a Seminoles fan this Saturday. This dude is my role model. I really can't complain about much of anything when this dude is doing it THIS big.

[Shmee]

Good on him. True role model if I've ever seen one.

[jkrdevil]

Like others have said I hope he gets it. I also hope he has some sort of car trouble on the way from BWI down to College Park and ends up missing the game.

[Jigga]

He got it.

[Shmee]

Congratulations to him. Imagine having to make the choice between signing a first-round draft pick's NFL contract and taking a Rhodes Scholarship.

[TFoA]

That is a hell of a choice, and one anybody would love to have. Congrats to the man. Talk about something to fall back on.

[rams80]

Congratulations to him. That is very nicely done.

[Joshawaggie]

Congrats to Rolle, great story. For shame on that DC who complained of his studying too much.