Now that reporters can spend more time with Mayo, Floyd hopes the public will stop hearing the term punk alongside his name and finally see the inquisitive student who scored a 29 on his ACT, who became the first recruit in Floyd’s three-year tenure to test out of freshman English, who’s taking a weekly three-hour journalism seminar, and who talks about going into real estate and opening restaurants in Huntington and elsewhere after his playing days. “Kind of like what Magic Johnson’s doing,” explains Mayo.
Mayo says he used to agree with the old Charles Barkley saw that athletes shouldn’t be role models. “But now I understand,” Mayo says. “I’ll get introduced to kids, and they’re nervous because they just want to be like you. It teaches you to be a role model for the next generation. Even when your situation looks so messed up — your father’s in jail, your mom’s working two jobs just to make sure you’ve got food — go to school and make your grades so you can accomplish your dream. And let your mom know: I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”
Link: SI.com – Writers – A Fight Between Friends (cont.) – Tuesday November 13, 2007 10:32AM
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Wow, now I’m a huge OJ Mayo fan. I know nothing about the ACT, but apparently it could be a 94 percentile score. Holy cow! I remember Kobe Bryant had around a 1050 on his SAT’s, and thought that was reasonably impressive (for an athlete- and I don’t mean athletes are dumb, just that they have to divide their time). David Robinson got 1320 on his SAT’s back when (guessing around 1982) 1320 meant more than it did in 1997 (I got 1320 as well). I think it’s kind of interesting that although this article is a little bit oriented around new school/old school, urban/suburban themes and stereotypes, you don’t get to find out how good of a student Kevin Love (Love is white, Mayo is black) is.
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