I live in Cleveland, and it was a "controversy" a few years ago when LeBron James entered the NBA instead of going to college first. People said, "He's giving up this great opportunity for an education." Huh? When Nike pays you $90M for endorsing shoes, you can afford to pay the authors of your favorite text books to come to your house and tutor you. Playing basketball in exchange for $50K/year (max) in tuition reimbursement when you could be playing for millions is idiotic. What if you get hurt? And, you're giving up what are literally four of your best earning years.
Even if not via a Rhodes scholarship, wouldn't Oxford still accept this guy a decade from now? What about attending in the off-season? I once met a guy who played football for the Cowboys in the early '80s. He attended a top-tier medical school part-time while playing and went to law school at Stanford when he finally "retired." Was he rational?
I'm all for education (or, more precisely, becoming educated), but if someone had offered me $10M/year to stare at a wall for 2000 hours a year in lieu of college for four years, I think I'd have taken the offer. Think of all the learning I could be doing now if I didn't have to have that day job!
Sports are knocked because they are low-brow and middle-class. But objectively, I think sport is a performance art that is every bit as wonderful as a great ballet or concert. Memories of the great sporting performances will last for centuries. Moreover, it is unique every time.
Something tells me that no journalist would look down on somebody for giving up an Oxford education to pursue a fine arts career, but that tells you more about the shared values of journalists than the relative merits of the activities.
There weren't any then, in our sense. In those days the word sport meant hunting. The closest thing would have been prize-fighting. I believe there are some fights from that far back that are still famous among aficionados today.
There are certainly records of individuals who won at the Olympic Games, but as far as I know no descriptions of what happened. I believe the most famous athlete in the ancient world was the wrestler Milo. There are a lot of stories about him, at least some of which are contemporary:
It isn't exactly fair to compare opportunities in the NBA and the NFL.
The average NFL career lasts less than 3 years. I would expect that the median lifetime earnings of a Rhodes Scholar to be higher than that of an NFL player. As a bonus a Rhodes scholar doesn't have to deal with the lingering injuries.
Not to mention when a lot of those injuries are to the head, I worked for a guy who played on the Jets for 4 seasons, and still had recurring problems due to concussions.
>I would expect that the median lifetime earnings of a Rhodes Scholar to be higher than that of an NFL player.
I agree. However, one must consider that many NFL players never even graduated from the colleges for which they played and have limited non-sports earning opportunities. One ex-Browns player in Cleveland is now a Realtor (sadly, a proper noun?) -- he's able to use his celebrity status to woo clients. Most aren't so lucky. Is it that being a Rhodes scholar results in high lifetime earnings, or is it that the skills/aptitude/drive required to earn this scholarship are the cause?
There are thousands of people who studied what he studied and have made no impact. Most likely, he will also make no impact in the field he studies.
In my opinion, he's making a poor decision - you have many many years to study anything you want, but just a few years where you can be a great athlete.
And this story is not relevant to any other players - they found the thing they love and they became great at it - just because they do not go study public health or some other irrelevant thing to them does not make them any lesser.
The journalist probably studied somewhere where intellectualism is supposed to be good just for itself. So for her, 'good' is defined by intellectualism. One could just as well turn this argument the other way round, and the pro football players could mock her for being so weak at sports.
This person has some passions and he's following them. This does not mean that every other person who has a passion in some field has to also have a passion in some unrelated subject that just happens to be offered at oxford.
I agree with the author, that Rolle made a good decision.
I also agree with your opinion about many years in study but a few years for a great athlete (caveat: for sports where speed and power are critical factors).
But the theme here, as applicable to a more general audience, sports-inclined or book-inclined alike, is the weighing of opportunities. In absolute terms of wealth and success and impact, you're probably right. It's much more likely that Rolle would play a larger role in the NFL (after all, the turnover rate is high, so there's room for many superstars).
Here's what I think is the catch. Going to Oxford is a double win, because 1. it's a different culture, 2. it's the elite of a different culture. The value isn't in the books. It's in the environment and the discussion. It's in how the experience will change his worldview, and will prime him to think with an expanded mindset.
It's a bit unscientific for me to say this, but I have become convinced that global thinking is literally impossible to people who don't actually live through it; for those who have, the later they experience it, the less they are able to appreciate it.
So Back to Rolle: if he had two options of seemingly equal value, say, 2 years of NFL superstar + 2 years of Oxford, or the other way around, I would always pick the latter option, simply because it's earlier.
There are thousands of people who studied what he studied and have made no impact.
This is a terrible criterion by which to choose a career. Believe me, I know.
Once you've chosen a field there's nothing wrong with gravitating toward the most interesting, important, or high-impact problems in that field. Indeed, that's often what you want to do -- though it's hardly a requirement for a happy life. Thank goodness there are superbly competent people in the world who are pleased to do good work as dentists or plumbers or surgeons or accountants, without feeling the constant compulsion to become legendary rock-star accountants. (Indeed, as we've all had occasion to observe, "innovative" accountants who are driven to "make an impact" can be a menace to society.)
But I assure you from personal experience that, while curing cancer seems like a more important problem than writing good CRUD apps (though that depends on the CRUD app!), that doesn't mean that you will be happier working on a cure for cancer than working as a programmer. Your happiness will depend more on whether you prefer pipetting to typing, or molecular biology to computer science, or NIH grant proposals to software specs, or academic politics to office politics.
Meanwhile, I can hardly blame anybody for not rushing off to play pro football, a game which I kind of like to watch (somewhat in spite of myself) but which I'm given to understand is an exhausting game in which you are slammed to the ground, hard, a few dozen times a week by fast-moving giants who weigh well over 300 pounds. If you're lucky, none of those guys will land on you the way Lawrence Taylor landed on Joe Theismann, your knee cartilage will survive more than a couple of seasons, and the repeated concussions won't cause perceptible brain damage. But, in the meantime, you've got all the personal autonomy of a private in the Marines and you can't even high-five someone on the field without a penalty. I accept the fact that there are people who absolutely love that life, but I don't understand why we assume that everyone should.
Most likely, he will also make no impact in the field he studies.
Opening a free medical clinic in the Bahamas is not something I would describe as "no impact". He might not fundamentally change the world, but even doing something as small as that makes the world a better place.
this story is not relevant to any other players
Sure it is: it's an example of a first-rate athlete who is also a very capable student, which is part of the whole idea behind college sports. That's certainly not the norm, in American college football at least.
I remember when schools were recruiting this guy and he said academics were very important to him. I chuckled when he went to Florida State (not a knock on FSU, but they're not a top public school). But apparently, he was pretty serious about academics. Great story. Happy for him.
That was a terrible article. While I applaud and wish this young man the absolute BEST of luck, this journalist did him absolutely NO justice by throwing in such random and completely pointless hyperbole, making knee jerk references to other NFL players who aren't living up to some imaginary line of a standard, and then she follows this up by insulting the readers, saying we are
"infatuat[ed] with talented athletes who are hopelessly immature and irresponsible prevents us from fully appreciating someone like Rolle and giving him the attention he deserves."
Mr. Rolle, I commend what you are doing, good luck thank you for proving this journalist wrong by your actions, not your words.
One, he's putting the NFL off for just a year - given his physical gifts, he'll still get drafted.
The man made a decision for his personal happiness - he decided that this would make him happy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are enshrined in our Declaration of Independence as the inalienable rights of man. The founders made a conscious decision to step away from Locke's framework of life, liberty, and property (although Locke used the word estate). They did so for a reason. And if you think the "pursuit of happiness" is meaningless, Loving v. Virginia should disabuse you of this notion.
Good for Rolle. I wish more people did what made them happy instead of what would make them the most money. It's the real American way.
Exactly, I wish people would quit talking about what the "best" decision is and just applaud the guy for doing what he loves and wants to rather than what people tell him he should do. Isn't that what we are all doing here?
Even if not via a Rhodes scholarship, wouldn't Oxford still accept this guy a decade from now? What about attending in the off-season? I once met a guy who played football for the Cowboys in the early '80s. He attended a top-tier medical school part-time while playing and went to law school at Stanford when he finally "retired." Was he rational?
I'm all for education (or, more precisely, becoming educated), but if someone had offered me $10M/year to stare at a wall for 2000 hours a year in lieu of college for four years, I think I'd have taken the offer. Think of all the learning I could be doing now if I didn't have to have that day job!