This story was written by Bob Garbordi - Executive Editor of the Tallahassee Democrat
This is a story you have to love, and you just absolutely have to share with your friends and family.
I called my wife when I got the text alert saying that Myron Rolle had been named a Rhodes Scholar. She told my daughter and a group of friends. And so on.
And yes, Tallahassee.com sent a breaking-news text alert out the minute the scholarship was announced. The truth is we can use more stories like Myron Rolle – check that, more people like Myron Rolle.
Sure, the media made a lot of it. He got more attention than America’s 31 other Rhodes Scholarship winners. Good for the media for recognizing a Florida State football player for his academic and personal success.
I’ve always been bothered by the term “off-the-field success.” That just means life. What good is being a good football player if you don’t live your life right?
Rolle has lived his 22-year life very well. That’s why he got a police escort to Byrd Stadium at the University of Maryland on Saturday night, why the crowd stood and cheered his entrance, why his teammates mobbed him and dumped celebratory Gatorade on his head.
Winning the Rhodes Scholarship is not like winning a Heisman Trophy. Media hype can't help you win a Rhodes Scholarship. According to the Rhodes Trust, “extraordinary intellectual distinction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for election to a Rhodes Scholarship.”
In other words, just being smart isn't enough. Having a “fondness” for sports helps. You must also display “sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship.” And you must demonstrate an ability to lead with a “moral force of character.”
Smart. Physically fit. Committed to your fellow man. A leader. Rolle deserves to have the media spotlight his accomplishments.
On this, T.K. Wetherell is absolutely on point: "We've been getting a lot of attention for (athletes) who get in trouble," the FSU president said. "I'm not going to apologize for the ones who do the right thing."
Myron Rolle graduated in 2 ½ years with a degree in exercise science and having completed the pre-med requirements. That plus being one of the premier safeties in the ACC, if not the country.
That plus he’s the founder of “Our Way to Health,” a fifth-grade curriculum that addresses diabetes and obesity for students at a charter school run by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Not to mention he won FSU’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Award, which provides $4,000 for undergraduates to pursue research in their field of study, and the Vires Award, given annually for "intellectual and moral strength."
That's just for starters. There is much more to this young man.
FSU should brag on Rolle but also on itself.
Three Rhodes Scholarship winners in four years: Rolle, Garrett Johnson and Joe O’Shea. Johnson was also an NCAA champion in the shot put; O’Shea was student-body president. FSU's other Rhodes Scholarship winner was Caroline Alexander in 1976.
But none got the attention in the media of a big-time football player that Rolle is getting: Sports Illustrated and the Chronicle of Higher Education joined the Tallahassee Democrat in flying with Rolle from Birmingham, where the Rhodes Scholarship was announced, to Maryland. ESPN and the Miami Herald have done stories, too.
So FSU has no reason to apologize for the hype around Myron Rolle. No one is bothered when the school hypes an athlete for the Heisman, and this -- well, the Rhodes Scholarship is so much better than that.
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