A lot of people don’t think of professional athletes as the brightest crayons in the box. This may be because jocks have a long-standing reputation of being ignorant bullies, but that’s just not true. Most athletes are both talented on the field and off. They have to be if they want to get into an Ivy League, since the Ivies don’t give athletic scholarships.
Don’t believe me? Here are some former Ivy Leaguers who are now in the pros:
1. Lou Gehrig
Nicknamed “The Iron Horse,” Lou Gehrig was a New Yorker through and through. Not only did be play his entire 17 year career with the New York Yankees, he choose to stay close to home and attend Columbia University. He only attended Columbia for two years, but was apart of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, as well as the football and baseball teams. He is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history and one of the greatest players of all time. He died at 36 from ALS, now commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
2. Bill Bradley
Not only was he a presidential candidate, a U.S. senator and a hall of fame NBA player and an Olympic gold medalist, Bill Bradley was also a Rhodes scholar while attending Princeton University. He unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2000, and is an author of six non-fiction books, as well as a radio host and corporate director of Starbucks.
3. Jeremy Lin
You might have heard this name only recently and for good reason. The Harvard economics graduate, who received no athletic scholarships out of high school and went undrafted after college, is making quite an impression as a point guard for the New York Knicks. After injuries and personal issues plagued the Knicks at point guard, Lin’s number was called. He answered in a big way by scoring 25 and 28 points, respectively, in his first two starts. He is also the first American born NBA player to be of Chinese of Taiwanese decent.
4. Ryan Fitzpatrick
Despite a short lived Cinderella start this season, Buffalo Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had a better college career than he’s experiencing in the pros. As Harvard’s starting quarterback, he had a record of 384 of 641 passes for 5,234 yards, 39 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. He collected 1,487 yards with 16 scores on 365 carries (4.1 avg.) and totaled 6,721 yards, an average of 224.0 yards per game, while seeing action in 30 contests. This puts him in second place on Harvard’s career list for pass completions behind Neil Rose. And aside from his good showing on the field, Fitzpatrick was an excellent student as well and was ranked as the fifth smartest athlete by Sports News.
