Community | October 26, 2009 | 15 comments

American football star Myron Rolle trades NFL for Oxford Med. School

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/25/myron-rolle-nfl-oxford-university

Image
bansheewail
Myron Rolle swapped shoulder pads, hard hits and a professional US football contract for lectures, tutorials and quiet anonymity at Oxford University when he traded a spot in the National Football League draft last year for a Rhodes Scholarship.

Rolle, 22, was a star defensive player at Florida State University, where he also won acclaim as a pre-medical student for research on stem cells and cancer cells.

In the safety position, Rolle, who is 6ft 2in and weighs 15 stone 5lbs, specialised in taking players to the ground with punishing tackles at full speed, snagging opponents' passes out of the air and running them back for touchdowns.

A top prospect for the NFL, Rolle last year opted to defer entering the league's amateur draft for a year and study for a master's degree in medical anthropology at Oxford, all with an eye towards an eventual career in medicine.

"I feel a little disappointed when I see guys playing on Sundays, especially guys I'm friends with," he told the New York Times. "But when I walk out of my accommodation in Norham Gardens, spend time with my friends and go to class, I realise that I did make a good choice. It's been worth it."
  1. groups:
    Community,   Current Tonight,   Tuff E Nuff,   NFL
  2. tags:
    News,  Culture,  Random,  US News,  7 more
  3. recommended by:
    eldamon
  4.     
    |

15 comments // American football star Myron Rolle trades NFL for Oxford Med. School

more from Community:
from the community

top videos