Choosing a Rhodes Scholarship over the NFL?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.