You Study Too Much: The Burden Of Being Myron Rolle
Immediatately following this segment, the commentary on Myron Rolle’s draft prospects revealed a truly sad revelation…..he has more brain than brawn and that scares NFL bigwigs.
Myron Rolle’s off-field success could hurt in the draft
ESPN’s Outside the Lines ran a story Sunday morning about Myron Rolle, the Florida State defensive back who became a Rhodes Scholar and is now a prospect in the 2010 NFL draft.
The whole segment is worth watching, and the companion piece by Wright Thompson at ESPN.com is worth reading, but the Outside the Lines segment ended on an odd note, citing ESPN’s draft experts as saying Rolle’s off-field pursuits would actually hurt his stock among NFL teams.
The thinking, according to ESPN, is that NFL teams want to draft guys who need to play football and want to study nothing more than a playbook — not guys like Rolle, who wants to become a doctor and enjoys studying the latest developments in stem cell research. The report said Rolle has dealt with this mentality before when his defensive coordinator at Florida State, Mickey Andrews, told Rolle that he was spending too much time on school and not enough time on football.
It’s kind of a sad commentary: After a great piece about what a fine young man Rolle is, ESPN felt the need to point out that being a fine young man could, in Rolle’s case, actually count against him on NFL teams’ draft boards.
But it’s surely true that Rolle could decide at any time to walk away from football and find greater success in another field. As far as NFL teams are concerned, that’s not a good quality in a draft prospect.
Read The Burden Of Being Myron Rolle
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February 21st, 2010
TRANSLATION: WE PREFER THE DUMB NIGGAS WHO JUST WANT THE CASH, WEAR GOLD CHAINS, AND BED THE HOOCHIE MAMAS.
I have every confidence that Myron Rolle see through the bullshit and choose wisely. After the Tiger Woods lyching last week, seriously, I hope he tells the NFL to go ESPN to go FUCK themselves.
February 21st, 2010
This Black man is super intelligent and strong. Enemy #1 of white men.
February 21st, 2010
That report hurt me. Myron Rolle didn't blow out his knee, and staged a comeback a year later. He didn't take a year off to take care of legal problems. He is a brillant and extremely athletic black man who took a year off to follow a passion.
And our society questions him for it, and is willing to penalize him for it. Wtf is up?
February 21st, 2010
My brother dealt with the same thing in college football. I know that as his sister I constantly was preaching. I was in the dorm talking and talking to the teammates. I keep harping education plus sports. Education is a ticket to some kind of middle class or just some money having lifestyle if you are not bill gates by now.
Her held steadfast and studied. Even when the coach threatened him and said he was a poison to the team. That's right, kids that study hard are a poison to the team because they need players who are on autopilot to just put shorts first, read playbook all day and show up to the most easiest class.
When these players are hurt in college, they continue to force them to play, threatening to take away their scholarship even if they are hurt. If they study, they try to brainwash them by sending alumni to come in there and tell them “you will have connection to get you into the ….. world [feel in the corporate world]”
My brother would tell stories of how the career counselors would try to take him away from accounting and instead to easy classes. He kept pushing even ending up on the academic athletic league.
I also saw some kids who become so excited about the prospect of being NFL players that they will do anything. Though the chances are limited to them for making it. Even in my quest to try to make them focus on school and education is the ticket out but they look like who is this fool talking to? I recall going to my brother graduation [he had secured a job at one of the top NY financial firm] but to see some of his colleagues, some just walking without degrees because they were credit short or working with a degree that will not get them a job was sad.
The career counselors do not look out for the interest of these kids as they place them in silly degrees that require less work. Its sad.
But at least I see my younger brother going back to talk to the young recruits. Yes you are on an football scholarship but use that scholarship to get an academic degree, that's your number one priority. He has to do it away from the coaches.
Its really a sad cycle. I am not sure if all the coaches or schools have the best interest of the kids at heart. That's why its incumbent for parents and former students to help out and push.
Myron Rolle is a great role model and amazingly brilliant person. Wish him all the success on his journey. And he better be careful and keep his eyes wide open because they are folks always out to destroy.
February 21st, 2010
Excerpt from the full story The Burden of Being Myron Rolle:
Whatever he does, he does it well and, to the immense frustration of others, with ease and grace. He's an All-American safety. He can play saxophone and sing. He was the lead in his high school's production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” He graduated from Florida State as an exercise science major in less than three years with a 3.75 GPA. He shadows doctors, dreaming of medical school. He says “please” and “thank you.” He researches stem cells. He starts anti-obesity programs that the U.S. Department of Interior adopts, aimed at helping Native American children make smart choices about fitness and health. He raises money for hospitals. Myron Rolle, it can safely be assumed, not only eats vegetables, he likes them. Life hangs comfortably from his shoulders like a fine suit.
On Nov. 22, 2008, Rolle entered the Maryland game late in the first half after spending part of the day in Alabama for his Rhodes interview.So, it's no surprise that during the 2008 football season he was named a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship, the most prestigious academic award given. Only, the deciding interview was scheduled for the day of a game at Maryland — and the interview was in Alabama. No problem. SuperMyron would simply go to Birmingham, answer the committee's questions and still make it to the game by halftime. He might just leap a tall building while he was at it and keep right on going until he landed at midfield.
Nothing thrown at him by the interviewers shook him. He spoke with passion, threw in a joke or two and, at the end, stood there with a smile on his face. One of the judges winked at him. No need to drag out the suspense.
Another success. Rolle was chosen — he soon would announce he was skipping his senior season to go to Oxford — and minutes later he boarded a private jet, shadowed by reporters from both Sports Illustrated and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Halfway to Maryland, a crowd waiting to cheer his run out of the tunnel in garnet and gold, he put in his earphones and scrolled through his iPod.
What could provide the appropriate soundtrack for this kind of life?
Rolle chose two songs.
One was Ice Cube's “It was a Good Day.”
But even that didn't seem to do his run of blessings justice.
The other one came closer, Frank Sinatra singing:
When I was 21
It was a very good year
February 21st, 2010
A2 you got understand the mindset. They need followers and not leaders. They only need leaders when it comes to someone with the ability to read a playbook or come speak to the students about how great the university is on recruiting day.
He going against the norm in their head and that will not be tolerated.
February 21st, 2010
There but by the grace of God……the pressures these young men face…thank goodness Myron is well aware of it, but heaven forbid, this could have turned out MUCH differently…we know a modern day lynching is always waiting:
There was a night in college that still gives him chills. It was Halloween, and he and some teammates were at a bar. He doesn't drink, but he still likes to hang out with friends. All around him, drunken students, many wearing skimpy costumes, staggered and swayed. One coed, who he thought was attractive and cool, was dressed like a nurse. She was hammered, so Rolle decided he and his buddy should go home. Only, the girl followed them, got into their car and wouldn't get out. He looked in the back seat and just imagined the Tallahassee cops pulling them over: two big black men and a petite, soon-to-be-passed-out white girl dressed as a slutty nurse. He and his teammate whispered to each other: This isn't a good look.
Rolle phoned her friends, who freaked out, accused him of trying to assault her and threatened to call the cops. His mind raced: I'm like, Are you serious? I'm trying to do the right thing. He saw it all disappearing. They drove around the block, back to the same bar, and got her out of the car. “I would not be here right now,” he says. “I shouldn't have even talked to her. I called my brother that night: 'I made a mistake, man.' He said, 'Myron, don't ever do that again.'”
He learned something. No mistakes. Not even one. So he is almost constantly on. When he is interviewed on camera, his vocabulary changes. When he speaks in class, it is not how he speaks in the FSU locker room. Dressing one evening not long ago, he fingered his letter jacket hanging on a chair and asked aloud, “Jock or no jock?” There is the person he is alone, and there is the person he is in front of people. They are not the same.
“He doesn't ever let his guard down,” McKinley says.
February 21st, 2010
thats right they try to brainwash our young people to think the only thing
they can do is kick a ball or spit out a rap lyric
there is nothing wrong with entertaining or being an athlete
but our young people are so much more than that
February 21st, 2010
“”He doesn't ever let his guard down,” McKinley says.'
Rolle can NOT afford to let his guard down; nor can he let his life be ruled by accepting the fears of white folks.
February 21st, 2010
Dana, these fools know that PBO is in the White House. A Black, good
looking, educated, family man made it into the White House and is serving
the American people and not just the occupants who reside there.
The stereotypes and myths are falling apart, even as these folks are stuck
in their racist grooves.
White Privilege; IT'S A BITCH!!
February 21st, 2010
I am sure he will be smarter than his coaches and will voice his opinion. Expressing an opinion and questioning are no no's for Black men.
February 21st, 2010
if he ever lets his guard down…they'll be there waiting, with ropes.
February 21st, 2010
I'm feeling you Alex; it's disgusting to read the bullshit, though it isn't surprising. Envy is not an attractive look. The mulit-faceted world of a Black man is admired, envied, loved, hated, imitated…..
It's best we keep being our beautiful black selves, because we cannot be duplicated.
February 21st, 2010
They want a dumb black buck.
That is all.
February 21st, 2010
Town u crack me up “a dumb black buck.”
February 21st, 2010
Yep, andr eady to string him high too…
I'll bet the NFL and ESPN didn not mention Bill Bradley's off court success could hurt him…
February 21st, 2010
I wanted to think this was a joke, but I know it's not. They want nearly illiterate players that can't read their contracts.
This is fucking unreal.
February 21st, 2010
I don't mean to be crass, but that's what they want.
If this were some white football player taking a year off to go to Oxford he'd be the toast of the town, but a black guy? Forget about it.
These sports teams need dumb black bucks to make them some money. That way they don't have any leverage. Who's going to be more pliable? Some ghetto kid with an Allen Iverson/Michael Vick type ghetto family members who ain't got shit and has no options except to dance to their tune or be back in the ghetto?
Or a Myron Rolle, who can be like “Later, dudes” and go be a doctor?
The Myron Rolles can think for themselves—the NFL/NBA plantation owners can't have that.
February 21st, 2010
These are your REAL AMERICANS, rikyrah.
February 21st, 2010
THIS!
February 21st, 2010
Of course they do….it was well known that Duante Culpepper was pretty much blackballed years ago because he was his own agent ….all of a sudden just to get a backup job, he hired an agent for the upcoming season. Go figure.
February 21st, 2010
And where is STEVEN A SMITH on this?
uh huh
uh huh
but, he was screeching everywhere about Tiger
February 22nd, 2010
“And where is STEVEN A SMITH on this?'
COONIN & SPOONIN with teh enemy.
February 22nd, 2010
Oh hell naw…they dont bring Steppin A out to talk about a negro like this. When they need a good knee-grow to bash a brutha that's when they pluck the likes of Steppin A. off the shelf. As soon as he fulfills that need, they put him back up and that's where he stays. Dont worry, closer it comes to the draft, when they find out that some top pick played hooky from school in 6th grade or his 3rd cousin on his half-uncle's side got caught with weed, we'll see Steppin A out to discuss the “character issues” of said prospect…..but hell no on him being ALLOWED to offer any commentary on the likes of Myron Rolle.
February 22nd, 2010
Wow this makes me sad and pissed off at the same time.
February 22nd, 2010
I see why I just lurk in here as your point and others was just what I was going to post…co-signed!
February 22nd, 2010
Good points!
February 22nd, 2010
Following FSU football, this was a sight for sore eyes. It's nice to see actual academics on the playing field (which is the intended purpose). NFL or not, I'm sure he'll turn out fine…
February 22nd, 2010
Oh, Imma get my nephew to read this excerpt…I tell him all the time, but reading this will let him know I'm not exaggerating. If you a black man with any prospects, you have to guard yourself like Fort Knox b/c trouble will come to you if you don't. This article is so illuminating and sad at all points…
February 22nd, 2010
Miranda, you have it right. Stephen and 'em have been bought and paid for…Myron Rolle won't help them get paid.
February 22nd, 2010
Steven A. Smith = White man's bitch
February 22nd, 2010
Exactly! That's why these dudes to need to wise up and stop being blinded by the bling and the ass, and start handling their business. If not, they're nothing more than a slave with a paycheck and no power.
February 23rd, 2010
What's up WSY Family! It's been awhile. Sometimes you must take care of personal business. I'm reading this article and SMH because intelligence and ambition off the court/field is seen as a “burden?”
Gone are the days of Kareem, Arthur, Jim, Ali and them. They were intelligent, political and engaged in the world around them. The standards these Men set are now seen as a detriment. It's pathetic and a shame.
I hope this young brotha keeps about his business and understands that the sports field can be a modern day plantation itself.
February 23rd, 2010
Hey SDG,
Glad to see you posting again. Wee missed you.
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