Myron Rolle
*The Tennessee Titans nabbed Florida State safety and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle in the sixth round of the NFL Draft on Saturday against quiet concern over his commitment to the game.
Rolle graduated in 2 1/2 years from Florida State, where he played safety for three years. He chose to skip his senior year after being awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, an honor that only 32 men and women garner every year and requires study at Oxford University.
Rolle spent this past football season in Oxford studying for a graduate degree in medical anthropology. Yet, the Titans still selected him with the 207th overall pick – and over questions from multiple NFL teams, scouts and executives about his commitment level because of his decision to accept the Rhodes Scholarship.
In a radio interview on Monday – in between answering questions about American health care policy, the medical clinic he plans to build in the Bahamas, his love for football, and hanging with fellow Rhodes Scholar President Bill Clinton – he addressed the question of how having his commitment to football questioned made him feel.
“I was very surprised. I had anticipated I would get some questions. … but I didn’t expect it to be as big, or as huge of an issue in the whole scheme of the draft process,” he said. “The only thing I can say or try to convey is that I have a lot of options, I do, and I’m very proud I won the Rhodes Scholarship. Medical school will be in my future 15 years from now, Lord willing … and being a politician is not out of the question either. But if I have all these options and I still choose to play football, that must mean that I really love it. … I really do want it, and I have to show it.”
This man should be commended. He would be a fool not to go to school at Oxford. He knows what’s up. ANYONE who thinks his decision was stupid is stupid.
I am so very proud of this young brother. I, too, think he should opt to go to Oxford. Finally, I hope this brother shares this wealth of knowledge and eventually money with a sister of like status, of which we are legion. Go on Myron, with your bad self! P.S.: If I were a tad bit younger, I’d take your body, put it on a plate, and sop you up like gravy! Lord, ham mercy!!!! That body makes me want to shout, throw my hands up and shout! until he says he will!
Let me get this straight…folks are concerned because the brother is brilliant? Is that what is being said under the guise of football loyalty?
What I see is “them” worried about an uppity nigger – how dare he care more about educating himself than about taking our money to play football and living the life with the bling and hoochies?
Amazing. A white cat with like skills and intelligence is “normal”, while a brother is seen as lacking desire to play the game. Where is the outrage from the players? Between this and the is your mama a whore incident, I have lost desire to watch football.
Co-sign all. I didn’t know there was even any controversy. Very stupid. I think Jazzfan you diagnosed this “controversy” correctly. “Others” don’t know how to digest someone like Rolle.
AMEN! to all the posters. I concur 100% The young man is highly intelligent and well spoken at that. He states he enjoys education and football, What is wrong with that? He was drafted and will play in the NFL. My God! some of these white folks have lost their minds. Obviously, they want a DUMB jock playing in the NFL one who is obsessed with money and golddiggers. Also, in interviews he can speak well and will not sound like a street thug like a few of the athletes.
Now you know the NFL is an alternate universe when there is concern of a young man’s commitment when he decides to accept a once in a lifetime honor being a Rhodes scholar. You would think that the NFL would be jumping up and down (whether this guy becomes an NFL star of not) to be able to say “we have a Rhodes Scholar” in the league. You would “think.”
oNLY IN THE u.s., WOULD A BLACK PERSON BE DOGGED FOR GETTING AN EDUCATION.
nightshift, believe it or not it’s black people that dogged him out the most. I couldn’t believe what some people were saying in the barbershop when he first left for Oxford.