How Dare NFL Teams Question Myron Rolle's Commitment to Football?
by Clay Travis
On Saturday, the Tennessee Titans drafted Florida State safety Myron Rolle in the sixth round of the NFL Draft with the 207th overall pick.
Rolle, whom you previously knew as the Rhodes Scholar who spent his past season in Oxford studying for a graduate degree in medical anthropology, graduated in 2 1/2 years from Florida State, where he played safety for three years. Then he chose to skip his senior year to take advantage of the Rhodes Scholarship, an honor that only 32 men and women garner every year.
You've probably heard of a few of the alums from the Rhodes, guys like President Bill Clinton and former NBA great Bill Bradley.
What you may have heard and brushed off was this: Multiple NFL teams, scouts and executives questioned Rolle's commitment to football because he made this decision.
Why?
Because the thinking goes -- and we're defining "thinking" broadly here since many of the scouts, coaches and executives making these comments would be pumping gas for a living without football -- that Rolle is too smart, that his priorities in life don't revolve entirely around a pigskin bouncing on a field.
Welcome to the 21st century NFL, where your commitment to the game doesn't get questioned if you fail multiple drug tests, drive drunk or rape a woman. But woe unto you if you have the audacity to graduate early from college and take a year off to pursue a Rhodes Scholarship. Then you're a smart guy, the NFL's own version of the untouchable caste in India. That's why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, including head coach Raheem Morris, could ask Rolle at the Senior Bowl how it felt to desert his teammates for his senior season.
Rolle's "desertion"?
Accepting the Rhodes Scholarship in Oxford.
If only we could all be so lucky to be deserted by our teammates for this.
Read the Full Essay @ NFL.Fanhouse
by Clay Travis
On Saturday, the Tennessee Titans drafted Florida State safety Myron Rolle in the sixth round of the NFL Draft with the 207th overall pick.
Rolle, whom you previously knew as the Rhodes Scholar who spent his past season in Oxford studying for a graduate degree in medical anthropology, graduated in 2 1/2 years from Florida State, where he played safety for three years. Then he chose to skip his senior year to take advantage of the Rhodes Scholarship, an honor that only 32 men and women garner every year.
You've probably heard of a few of the alums from the Rhodes, guys like President Bill Clinton and former NBA great Bill Bradley.
What you may have heard and brushed off was this: Multiple NFL teams, scouts and executives questioned Rolle's commitment to football because he made this decision.
Why?
Because the thinking goes -- and we're defining "thinking" broadly here since many of the scouts, coaches and executives making these comments would be pumping gas for a living without football -- that Rolle is too smart, that his priorities in life don't revolve entirely around a pigskin bouncing on a field.
Welcome to the 21st century NFL, where your commitment to the game doesn't get questioned if you fail multiple drug tests, drive drunk or rape a woman. But woe unto you if you have the audacity to graduate early from college and take a year off to pursue a Rhodes Scholarship. Then you're a smart guy, the NFL's own version of the untouchable caste in India. That's why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, including head coach Raheem Morris, could ask Rolle at the Senior Bowl how it felt to desert his teammates for his senior season.
Rolle's "desertion"?
Accepting the Rhodes Scholarship in Oxford.
If only we could all be so lucky to be deserted by our teammates for this.
Read the Full Essay @ NFL.Fanhouse
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