The first SI Sportsman of the Year, and the first man to run a 4 minute mile, was Dr. Roger Bannister, who had a long career as a neurologist in England.
Yes, he was LITERALLY “a brain surgeon.”
Ryan Fitzpatrick, also a Harvard grad and current starting QB for the Jets, owns the highest score for a QB with 48/50.
Ethan “Bubblegum” Tate.
He also probably made a few bucks from the idea he sold to Kenner: Starting Lineup sports action figures.
I’d like to add something about the remarkable Dr. Ryan. His wiki page contains these two statements.
Makes the most productive year of my life, and almost everyone’s, look like a pile of puke.
One of my childhood idols, and one of the greatest NHL goalies ever, was Ken Dryden. Dryden got his undergraduate degree at an Ivy League school (Cornell), won a few Stanley Cups, took a few seasons off to get his law degree, then came back to the NHL and won a few more Stanley Cups.
Not too shabby.
Wow- here’s a guy I remember well as a player, but whose intellectual accomplishments I didn’t know.
When I was a kid, I remember that Charlie Johnson was the quarterback of the Denver Broncos (he played for several teams over a 15 year career). While he was playing for the (then) St. Louis Cardinals, he earned his master’s degree and his doctorate in Chemical Engineering at Washington University.
After retiring from football, he was a Chemical Engineering professor for decades at his alma mater, New Mexico State.
Matt Birk, an All-Pro center with the Vikings and Ravens, was a Harvard man with a high GPA. Very smart guy, but he says he had a teammate who was much smarter: running back Robert Smith.
People may recall that Smith was at the center of a mini-scandal when he was a freshman at Ohio State. Smith was both a phenomenal athlete and an ambitious young man with hopes of going to medical school one day. Every football factory recruited him, and he told all the coaches, “I need to take a heavy load of math and science courses. Level with me: can I do that and still play for your team?” Every coach, including John Cooper of Ohio State, swore he could.
But when Smith arrived in Columbus, he found that he’d been enrolled in a lot of Basket Weaving and Playground Management and Music Appreciation type courses. He complained, and was told by coaches, essentially, “You’re here to play ball, kid!” Smith went public, and got a lot of media attention at the time.
I’d forgotten about Smith. He walked away from the game after the 2000 season (in which he’d led the NFC in rushing, and was named to the Pro Bowl) to pursue his medical career. He is also apparently an amateur astronomer.
Myron Rolle was a Rhodes Scholar, now studying to be a doctor. Roger Staubach was a Naval Academy graduate who made a fortune (half a billion dollars or more) in real estate during and after his career, using his football salary as seed money.
Several athletes are being mentioned over and over. Are people reading the thread before posting? :dubious:
Another former NFL player, now a judge:
http://cp.cuyahogacounty.us/internet/ID-73-JudgeName-DickAmbrose-judgedetails.aspx
Golfers
Bobby Jones was a lawyer with degrees from Ga Tech, Emory, and Harvard
Cary Middlecoff (won Masters and US Open) was a dentist.
Don’t forget his experiences in Parliament. (Another Dryden fan)
And, this reminded me that former Bears kicker Bob Thomas is now Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Shaquille O’Neal, Ph.D.
Olympic gold medal hurdler Edwin Moses has a bachelor’s degree in physics, and an MBA.
I thought about Smith but purposely did not mention him in this thread because I think his intellectualism is all in his own head. He obviously is not a doctor. When he was “bullied” at Ohio State he nearly transferred to Stanford, but decided football was too important and didn’t want to miss a season due to transfer rules.
Same as Myron Rolle, you emphasize academics and then go to Florida State or Ohio State. Of course you can get a good education at those schools, but you know they want their football players to be playing football.
He also complained publicly and to the school about practice cutting into academic time (and it was, in fact, over NCAA guidelines), then left school early for the NFL draft.
If no one has mentioned it yet, Dikembe Motumbo and the late Manute Bol.
Doc Medich became an M.D. after his major league baseball career ended, though it was not the most successful career ever.
So did figure skater Debi Thomas