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OXFORD, England -- Oxford at first light is an ode to potential. The purple sky throws shadows off churches and their saw-blade spires, bringing definition to the gap-toothed smiles of crenellated walls. The ghosts come out in the dream of early morning. Twelve saints and seven British prime ministers walked these streets. So did Bill Clinton and John Donne, Sir Thomas More and Kris Kristofferson, plus the guy who invented the World Wide Web.
Myron Rolle talks about what it means to be a Rhodes scholar.
That little list? It always happens. People construct a roster of famous yet diverse alumni when describing Oxford -- the quirky sum even more fantastic than the successful parts -- implying that greatness comes with the diploma. But a shadow lurks near those collections of names. Oxford University is full of students who will one day change the world, yes, but it is also full of those who have the gifts to change it and will fail. In the hope of morning, though, let your focus fall on Clinton and Donne, More and Kristofferson and now, as the dreamy purple light burns off, as busses chug and belch down the ancient streets and another week of reality begins, Myron Rolle.
Rolle bounds down Banbury Road, long strides chewing up sidewalk, hurrying to his next lecture. Today's topic is "Pain and the Brain." He settles into a seat in the back of the room, the only student whose biceps strain against the fabric of his shirt. Around him, fellow Rhodes scholars open laptops, notebooks or leather-bound Moleskine journals. The professor, a world-renowned researcher, begins speaking, about Pavlov and the curious case of Phineas Gage. The students take notes furiously.
Rolle takes a few notes, too, but mostly he stares at the professor. The motors and gears in his head are spinning. This is how it's always been for him. His mind rarely stops computing; when his brother McKinley is throwing all the possible routes in random order during their regular morning football workout, Rolle just knows if they missed a 2, or maybe a 7. Today, he's focused on the man standing at the front of the room. What about this doctor? Where did he start? How did he immerse himself in the brain? When, and why, did pain come to interest him? Did he watch helplessly as someone he loved struggled against a devastating mental illness? Was it a wife? A child? What drove him to this very place at this very moment?
Suddenly, his focus shifts.
What about me? How did I get here?
Myron, who doesn't fail
A lifetime of unqualified successes, that's how.
Whatever he does, he does it well and, to the immense frustration of others, with ease and grace. He's an All-American safety. He can play saxophone and sing. He was the lead in his high school's production of "Fiddler on the Roof." He graduated from Florida State as an exercise science major in less than three years with a 3.75 GPA. He shadows doctors, dreaming of medical school. He says "please" and "thank you." He researches stem cells. He starts anti-obesity programs that the U.S. Department of Interior adopts, aimed at helping Native American children make smart choices about fitness and health. He raises money for hospitals. Myron Rolle, it can safely be assumed, not only eats vegetables, he likes them. Life hangs comfortably from his shoulders like a fine suit.
Myron Rolle
AP Photo/Rob Carr
On Nov. 22, 2008, Rolle entered the Maryland game late in the first half after spending part of the day in Alabama for his Rhodes interview.
So, it's no surprise that during the 2008 football season he was named a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship, the most prestigious academic award given. Only, the deciding interview was scheduled for the day of a game at Maryland -- and the interview was in Alabama. No problem. SuperMyron would simply go to Birmingham, answer the committee's questions and still make it to the game by halftime. He might just leap a tall building while he was at it and keep right on going until he landed at midfield.
Nothing thrown at him by the interviewers shook him. He spoke with passion, threw in a joke or two and, at the end, stood there with a smile on his face. One of the judges winked at him. No need to drag out the suspense.
Another success. Rolle was chosen -- he soon would announce he was skipping his senior season to go to Oxford -- and minutes later he boarded a private jet, shadowed by reporters from both Sports Illustrated and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Halfway to Maryland, a crowd waiting to cheer his run out of the tunnel in garnet and gold, he put in his earphones and scrolled through his iPod.
What could provide the appropriate soundtrack for this kind of life?
Rolle chose two songs.
One was Ice Cube's "It was a Good Day."
But even that didn't seem to do his run of blessings justice.
The other one came closer, Frank Sinatra singing:
When I was 21
It was a very good year
TUESDAY
Tucked into a narrow alley off High Street, St. Edmund Hall breathes students in and out of the long stone tunnel that opens into the main quadrangle, as the college has done for 800 years. Young men and women mill around the lush grass of the quad, in the shadow of the sundial and the well, and at night, they drink beer and smoke in the cemetery out back. Rolle, who doesn't have time for the graveyard bull sessions, stops by to check his mail. Two unfamiliar envelopes poke out of his slot.
The first one is from Ohio. He tears into the envelope and finds a note: I read about you in The Times and I thought you might be interested in this article from the New Yorker.
It's a recent piece by Malcolm Gladwell, and it offers and backs up the theory that professional football is a lot like dogfighting and is, ultimately, a sport that cannot be played without doing serious damage to the brain. This is, obviously, a conundrum for Rolle: He wants to be a pro football player and a neurosurgeon. Don't successful careers in each of these preclude the other? Of all the obstacles facing Rolle, including the luck and work and genetic blessings required to be one of the 32 chosen to be a Rhodes scholar and one of the 32 chosen to be a first-round pick, perhaps none is greater than this: People in each world don't believe anyone could possibly be passionate about the other. He's always asked: Which do you like more? Draft gurus question his commitment. His defensive coordinator at Florida State, Mickey Andrews, told Rolle that he was spending too much time on school and not enough time on football. Even Oxford University assigned him to St. Edmund Hall, known here as the jock college.
The other letter is from a London teacher.
I heard you this morning on Radio 4. Never have I heard a young man so articulate, forward thinking and inspirational. All I could think about listening to you was: I have to get him to speak at my school. I'm a teacher in London at an inner city school where I do lots of work around raising black achievement. To hear you speak about the importance of education and hearing about your life decisions -- putting off the NFL for Oxford, wanting to be a neurosurgeon, money not being your main goal in life -- it would all mean so much to the kids at my school.
Rolle considers his mail. Two letters, two totally different problems; if other people's myopia is an obstacle, then the exact opposite is, too. He is trying to stay on course in a vast sea of possibilities, and everywhere he goes, he is confronted by people lining up to tell him what he means and what he could be and, most confining of all, what he should be.
He is a vessel for other people's dreams.
Myron, who knows what others expect
Q: What do you struggle with most?
A: I have not had tragic incidences in my life that have rocked my personal being. The thing that really has been my biggest enemy in this world has been pressure. And people. People who I love. People who look at me differently. The pressure is tough, man. I'm not gonna lie. It's the hardest part. Easily.
Myron, whose dreams keep growing
Here are the three things to know about Rolle as he reads that second letter:
1. The Monday after he won the Rhodes scholarship, his cell phone rang. Jesse Jackson. At first, Rolle thought it was a joke. But no, it was actually Jesse Jackson, and he wanted to tell Rolle this: "If Dr. King were alive today, he'd be proud of you."
Myron Rolle
Chris Floyd for ESPN The Magazine
Myron Rolle skipped his senior season at Florida State to attend Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship.
2. While Rolle was in D.C. for the inauguration, Princeton professor and African-American leader Cornel West spotted him on the street and bowed. Literally bowed down and said this: "You are the future of black America."
Everywhere he's been, for as long as he can remember, he's been singled out for future greatness, by strangers and family alike. When he was in high school, riding on the New Jersey Turnpike with his dad, he asked one day, "What would it be like to be normal?" He's thought about that a lot.
And this, too: What is enough for those who see so much in him? He opens his e-mail and there's a recruiting pitch from the Harvard Business School. His dad wants him to make a perfect score on the Wonderlic given at the NFL combine. Jesse Jackson wants him to be a leader for an entire generation. Florida State told him on his recruiting visit that he could be a Rhodes scholar … and now he is. Mickey Andrews wants him to react, and his professors want him to think. He deals, on a daily basis, with the crushing weight of having this much potential. He worries about losing himself. He never stops thinking about what other people want for him, and how it's easy to become a mosaic of their expectations instead of staying true to his own. "The danger is that you lose a sense of identity," he says, "you lose a sense of who you are. If you continue to try to navigate through constructs that are set up by other people, by other people's thoughts of who you are and who you should be, you will never be personally at peace."
So he understands he shouldn't spend his life pleasing other people. But what does he want?
This brings us to …
3. A year ago, Rolle spoke at the College of the Bahamas. His family comes from the nation, and he alone among his five brothers was born in the United States (his mom traveled to Houston so he could be an American citizen). He was chosen before birth.
One of his many dreams is to open a medical clinic in his hometown of Exuma, and so, after the speech, the Bahamian politicians crowded around him. Be the prodigal son, they told him. Come back and be president one day. Be prime minister. When he returned to Tallahassee, he was online one night in his room and saw a photo tagged on Facebook of himself and the current president of the Bahamas. A lot of things ran through his head: People want me to come back and save their country? I don't know if that's in my plan. I never thought of politics. This isn't me.
Sitting there in the dark, he finally began to understand: There is no enough.
All he can do is stay focused on his dreams: NFL, medical school, then a life as a groundbreaking neurosurgeon and head of a foundation that brings medical care to those without.
You know, simple stuff.
Myron, who has set the bar high
Q: Has anyone ever said to you: "Myron, if you want to go to the NFL and have a long career and retire and live off investments, that's OK … it's your life"?
A: No.
He explains: "It's always, 'What's next?' I think people align themselves with my way of thinking when they're talking to me. They try to create new avenues for me to pursue, so if you want to be a doctor and you have interest in human rights and philanthropy and social equality of medicine and disease, why don't you think about being surgeon general? Then you could have a political impact, with a stronger influence and a bigger platform. I'm that person. 'What's next? What's next?'"
WEDNESDAY
There are mornings when none of it seems strange. The Iffley Road Sports Complex opens early, and a crowd of scholars who are also athletes wait outside. The sweatshirts and gym shorts place the toned men and women: rowers from Harvard, swimmers from Oxford, lacrosse players from Navy and, soon, one safety from Florida State University. Why does a man have to choose? Roger Bannister, who ran the first sub-4-minute mile on a track some 20 or so yards from this crowd, was also a doctor. Bill Bradley was a senator and is in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Myron Rolle
Chris Floyd for ESPN The Magazine
Myron and McKinley, right, have a regular morning football workout.
The Rolle brothers park their car -- a Peugeot, a tiny European subcompact -- and, instead of joining the crowd, they head to the rugby pitch and the tiny dungeon of a gym beneath it. Most days, they work out here, alone. When they do use the bigger facilities, the other students gawk at the weight and the reps -- especially the female student-athletes. Rolle and his brother have a code for noticing a young thing sneaking a peek; one will say, with a sly grin: "Mama, there go that man."
This morning, McKinley opens up the binder containing speed guru Tom Shaw's workout and starts counting the reps, converting pounds into kilos. Rolle does leg presses, McKinley a step ahead preparing the next station, the small room echoing with the iPod mix. Except, in place of celebratory anthems, songs about how great today, or this year or his entire life has been, there's a steady stream of rap songs about people being doubted. Rolle sings along -- except when the rappers curse. He skips those words.
Claustrophobic cinderblock walls crowd them. A small window, the spires and castles of the town insignificant through the glass, lets in the only natural light. Rolle comes into focus when he's grinding in the weight room. Outside, the sun is fully up. A song called "Watch Dis" blares through the small speaker. He could lose a step this year, lose some ineffable part of his game that he'll never get back. He knows he risked something coming over here. Knows he still needs to convince people how much football means, and they can't come here, to this room, and see. Rolle lies down on a mat, his feet on a big green medicine ball, his brother taking notes from a nearby weight bench, the Rolle boys, a long, long way from home, counting out crunches in a dungeon, chasing something like that first purple light.
Outside, the chill has come, and, when lifting is finished, Rolle walks onto the wet field under changing leaves, the rugby pitch lined at both ends by a row of tall evergreen trees. They're working on increasing the fluidity of his hips, just one of the many questions about his game. Was he overrated out of high school? Is he too stiff? Does he think too much? Why just one interception in three years? Can he just react and make plays?
McKinley says they got the official e-mail today from the NFL: Myron is invited and will attend the combine. "It was nice to get that confirmation," McKinley says. "He's stronger. Faster. He'll open some eyes."
He urges on his brother through the final rep of the final drill. "Last one," he says. "Last one. Finish strong. First round, baby."
Rolle's face is a portrait of focus. He digs into the field, his cleats kicking up tiny sparks of mud.
Myron, who feels the doubt
The car is cranked, exhaust rising behind them. McKinley is at the wheel, Rolle in the passenger seat. They are ready to go, but Rolle tells his brother not to put it in drive. Not yet. They need the soundtrack first. He punches a button on the CD player, moving through the new Jay-Z album. There's one song he needs to hear right now, three months until February's NFL combine. It's not about good anythings.
"Don't move until we get that track," he says.
"No. 14?" McKinley asks.
"There you go," Rolle says.
As the bass fires up, McKinley pulls back on Iffley Road, headed toward town. The hook comes and Rolle sings along:
"The motivation for me … is them telling me what I could not be.
"Oh, well.
"I'm so ambitious."
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