odanny
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There is something about immigrants to this country that makes them strivers, like the parents who raised Myron Rolle. His NFL career did not pan out, but he had greater things ahead anyway.
It had been one month without football for Myron Rolle, an N.F.L. safety, and he was foundering. Mr. Rolle was just 25, and his pro football career looked grim: He was released in 2011 after three unremarkable seasons with the Tennessee Titans and had failed in his attempt to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster. Without the structure and rigor of a football career, he struggled to make sense of what would come next.
Mr. Rolle had always had a Plan B. He had been a hot-tempered kid, but at 11, his older brother, Marshawn, gave him a copy of “Gifted Hands,” Dr. Ben Carson’s popular 1990 memoir that detailed how Dr. Carson went from being an inner-city youth with poor grades to the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
After reading it, Mr. Rolle stopped beating up classmates who called him racist slurs or made fun of his Bahamian immigrant parents and started chasing two dreams — being a pro football player and becoming a neurosurgeon like Dr. Carson.
He flourished playing as a defensive back for Florida State, where he was selected to be a Rhodes Scholar in 2009. Though he studied medical anthropology at Oxford as part of the program, Mr. Rolle said his neurosurgeon dream was “dormant” while he pursued football glory. In England, he trained for the N.F.L. draft and was selected by the Titans in 2010.
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Myron Rolle in a preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals in 2010 in Nashville. The Titans defeated the Cardinals, 24-10.Credit...Scott Cunningham/
But Mr. Rolle’s football dream did not go as planned. Though he was competitive in practices, he never played in an N.F.L. regular-season game and the Titans parted ways with him once his contract was up. He tried to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster but was cut before the 2012 season. Not yet ready to quit football, he returned home, to New Jersey, where he languished until his mother, Beverly, shook him out of his funk.
Showing him his grade school notebook, where he had written both goals, “she looked me straight in the eyes and pointed at the first one,” he recalled. “She said, ‘This one’s done.’ And she looked at the second one and said, ‘Now, we need to do this.’”
Today, he is Dr. Rolle, and at 35, he is in the sixth year of his neuroscience residency at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “Those words of encouragement, her belief in me, her thoughtfulness, her disposition during that moment was just what I needed, just what I needed to move forward to the next chapter in my life,” he said.
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It had been one month without football for Myron Rolle, an N.F.L. safety, and he was foundering. Mr. Rolle was just 25, and his pro football career looked grim: He was released in 2011 after three unremarkable seasons with the Tennessee Titans and had failed in his attempt to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster. Without the structure and rigor of a football career, he struggled to make sense of what would come next.
Mr. Rolle had always had a Plan B. He had been a hot-tempered kid, but at 11, his older brother, Marshawn, gave him a copy of “Gifted Hands,” Dr. Ben Carson’s popular 1990 memoir that detailed how Dr. Carson went from being an inner-city youth with poor grades to the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
After reading it, Mr. Rolle stopped beating up classmates who called him racist slurs or made fun of his Bahamian immigrant parents and started chasing two dreams — being a pro football player and becoming a neurosurgeon like Dr. Carson.
He flourished playing as a defensive back for Florida State, where he was selected to be a Rhodes Scholar in 2009. Though he studied medical anthropology at Oxford as part of the program, Mr. Rolle said his neurosurgeon dream was “dormant” while he pursued football glory. In England, he trained for the N.F.L. draft and was selected by the Titans in 2010.
Image
Myron Rolle in a preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals in 2010 in Nashville. The Titans defeated the Cardinals, 24-10.Credit...Scott Cunningham/
But Mr. Rolle’s football dream did not go as planned. Though he was competitive in practices, he never played in an N.F.L. regular-season game and the Titans parted ways with him once his contract was up. He tried to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster but was cut before the 2012 season. Not yet ready to quit football, he returned home, to New Jersey, where he languished until his mother, Beverly, shook him out of his funk.
Showing him his grade school notebook, where he had written both goals, “she looked me straight in the eyes and pointed at the first one,” he recalled. “She said, ‘This one’s done.’ And she looked at the second one and said, ‘Now, we need to do this.’”
Today, he is Dr. Rolle, and at 35, he is in the sixth year of his neuroscience residency at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “Those words of encouragement, her belief in me, her thoughtfulness, her disposition during that moment was just what I needed, just what I needed to move forward to the next chapter in my life,” he said.
It’s Never Too Late to Pivot From N.F.L. Safety to Neurosurgeon (Published 2022)
When Myron Rolle was cut from the Pittsburgh Steelers, he fell into a funk until his mother reminded him of his two childhood dreams: Play football, then become a neurosurgeon. It was time for Plan B.
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