Breaking The Mold

Grayling Love balances pro football aspirations with grad school goals

Everyone is familiar with the caricature of the dumb jock: oversized, drooling, munching on raw steaks – and that’s during class.

Arizona State University’s Grayling Love is not a caricature.

Love, an offensive lineman and a second-team All Pac-10 selection, clearly has the jock part down (and, at 6-foot-3-inches tall and nearly 300 pounds, possibly the oversized part, as well).

But you can toss the dumb part out the window.

Love, a finance major, is already working on his masters degree, has accumulated more than $20,000 in scholarships for graduate school and is working for more. In a world in which it seems college athletes increasingly look at school as an annoying way to pass the time between seasons, Love’s attitude is especially refreshing.

"Academics should come first,” Love said.

"There’s a reason they call us student athletes. We’re students first.”

For Love, it’s natural.

"My mom was a teacher,” he said. “Academics were always important.”

They still are. But so is football.

"The NFL is definitely something I aspire to, something I want to do,” Love said. “Right now I’ve heard (draft predictions) anywhere from mid-rounds to free agent. I just want someone to give me a chance. I don’t care where it is or what round it is. I just want to play football.”

It wouldn’t derail his educational plans, but it would alter them. He’d have to work on his post-graduate degree – or degrees, possibly – during the off-season.

"I'm not going to give up trying to get my masters just because of professional football,” Love said. “I want to get my masters…. That’s something I’m going to do regardless of what happens.”

When Love looks back on his playing career at ASU, particularly his final season in which the Sun Devils finished 7-5, he will of course remember the accomplishments – beating Arizona, beating Rutgers in the Insight Bowl – and the disappointments, as well.

" It kind of hurts me, not being able to beat LSU or (Southern Cal) this year, when we had golden opportunities,” Love said, but he keeps it in perspective.

"That’s how all games are,” he said. “You can’t live and die by those things.”

So what’s the ultimate goal? Which would he prefer, a doctorate or a pro career?

"Oh, goodness, that’s tough,” he said. “For me it’s almost equal. Earning your Ph.D. and trying to break that dumb jock mold would be huge.”

— Bill Goodykoontz

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