By Gerald Ensley
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Myron Rolle admitted his heart was pounding.
Thirteen finalists for the Rhodes Scholarship sat before the committee late Saturday afternoon in Birmingham, all hoping to hear their name called.
The committee chairman announced the first name — and it wasn't Rolle. Then the chair paused for three seconds — and called Rolle's name.
In that moment, the Florida State defensive back had joined the long line of presidents, authors and inventors whose resumes include the world's most prestigious post-graduate scholarship.
"Those three seconds seemed like an eternity; my heart was pounding," Rolle said. "The first thing I did was put my head down and thank God for the opportunity and moment. I knew it wasn't just me in the room. I had a lot of help from a lot of people."
Rolle was selected from 13 finalists in District 7, which covers Florida, Alabama and Tennessee. The other student selected was Parker Goyer, a Duke graduate now at Harvard.
Two of the other District 7 finalists were from Tallahassee: 2003 Maclay grad Adam Kircher, who now attends Stanford, and 2004 Leon High grad Elliot Hawkes, who attends Harvard.
The U.S. each year sends 32 students — two from each of 16 districts — to do postgraduate study in Oxford, England as Rhodes Scholars. More than 7,000 men and women have been Rhodes Scholars since they were first awarded in 1903.
Rolle, a junior eligible for next spring's NFL draft, said he has not decided whether he would accept the Rhodes Scholarship or pursue pro football. If he accepted, Rolle, who wants eventually to be a physician, would spend one year studying medical anthropology.
"The Rhodes — where the future is going with that — I want to make that decision with my family," Rolle said. "We haven't really talked about the future yet."
The selection — fittingly in the city where FSU head coach Bobby Bowden was born and raised — came shortly after 5 p.m. EST. Within minutes, Rolle was whisked off to catch a private plane to play in the FSU-Maryland game at 8 p.m. EST.
The plane was a corporate Lear jet provided free to FSU by Bob Basham, chairman and co-founder of Outback Restaurants, who is benefactor of the FSU business school and has a son and step-daughter who attend FSU. Reporters from Sports Illustrated, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Tallahassee Democrat, plus a freelance photographer , accompanied Rolle and FSU athletics academic advisor Bill Shults.
Rolle texted friends before takeoff. Once airborn, he ate a sandwich, napped for a half-hour then listened to his iPod. As the plane landed, he was listening to Ice Cube's "Today Was A Good Day."
The hour-and-half flight had Rolle in Baltimore just minutes after the game started. Following a police-escorted race to the stadium — monitored by ESPN broadcasters — Rolle was suited up and on the field by the second quarter. After embracing his parents on the sideline, Rolle entered the game with 1:30 remaining in the first half and FSU ahead 21-0.
Rolle became Florida State's third Rhodes Scholar in four years and fourth overall. Previous Rhodes Scholarship winners from FSU were student body president Joe O'Shea (2007), track and field All-American Garrett Johnson (2005) and best-selling author Caroline Alexander (1976), a Tallahassee native who was selected in the first year women were eligible.
Rolle is believed to be the first major college football player selected for a Rhodes Scholarship since Cory Booker, a Stanford tight end and now mayor of Newark, N.J., who was chosen in 1992. Other major college football winners have included Ohio State receiver Mike Lane (1985), Southern Cal quarterback Pat Haden (1975), Army's Heisman Trophy winner halfback Pete Dawkins (1959) and Colorado halfback and U.S. Supreme Court judge Byron "Whizzer" White (1938).
Rolle's pursuit of a Rhodes Scholarship had gained national publicity, in part because it has become unusual.
Elliot Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, estimated "three to five" of the annual 32 Rhodes Scholarship winners are varsity athletes. But he said it is "rare" for a Division I football or basketball player to be chosen, because of the time demands of those sports at that level.
"A generation ago, you could be a varsity athlete in those sports and still compile the record we're looking for," said Gerson, himself a Rhodes Scholar (1974). "But the time commitments are so much more demanding now."
Rolle had spent weeks preparing for the final 20-minute interview, participating in seven mock interviews with tutors and former Rhodes Scholars.
FSU professor Sally Karioth, who mentored Rolle during his yearlong pursuit of the Rhodes and accompanied him to Birmingham, had worried Saturday's 20-minute finals interview was too short. She said Rolle's reserved personality does not lend itself to an immediate appreciation of his intelligence, dutifulness and long list of accomplishments.
"He's solid as a rock. But (the committee members) are not going to get that in 20 minutes," Karioth said. "It takes a long time to realize he does the right thing over and over. He doesn't seem to fit his bio until you know him long enough to know that he not only fits it, but he is a shining example of it."
Rolle conceded he was thinking about that — "I'm a little introverted" — but opened up the interview with a few joking comments about television coverage of the recent presidential election, which brought chuckles from the committee.
"Once I got them laughing, I relaxed," Rolle said. "The pressure went down and I started enjoying the moment."
Rolle said the toughest question in the interview was about U.S.health care. Rolle said he was dismayed 45 million Americans have no health insurance and said health care should be "more of a right than a privilege." He shared a story told to him by fellow Tallahassee candidate, Elliot Hawkes, who was in a bike accident in Switzerland and received fast, extensive treatment.
"If that can happen to a stranger in Switzerland," Rolle said, "it should happen in the United States."
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