An Exception?

College Football: Myron Rolle Going Pro In Something Other Than Sports:

"Florida State safety Myron Rolle has decided to forgo the NFL Draft and stay in school another year. The school just happens to be Oxford University."

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had conversations with various friends about college football, and I have been put in the role of trying to dissuade them from their belief that college athletes (primarily college football players) are in fact thyroid cases without functioning frontal lobes, conditioned to do nothing but hit each other and assault women.

Maybe Rolle is simply the exception, or maybe is the paradigm of the concept of scholar-athlete...someone who is of sound mind and sound body.

Wonkette had a piece yesterday about how the Army was overwhelmed by obese recruits which, as part of larger point, shows that as Americans we don't want well rounded individuals...we don't want men and women who enjoy athletics as well as academics, science as well as philosophy, poetry as much as beer pong.

Part of this I blame on John Kennedy and the fears that the Soviets were going to beat us in the space race, and the continuation of that tired story (Oh Noes, the Chinese and the Indians produce more engineers than we do!) and the other part of this I blame on an educational system that allows for too much mediocrity.

A well balanced life makes almost everything interesting (with the notable exception of NASCAR) and enjoyable...Joanie and Johnnie Next-Generation should be able to find enjoyment in everything, not just X activity, because...chances are...X activity isn't going to provide them with the base tools that they need for the rest of their lives.

We should honor Rolle, not because he is an exception, but because he is an example. Life, especially the lives of young people, does not have to be an either-or.