Why Ray Rice never stopped chasing his Rutgers diploma: ‘It’s not a redemption story’

As he talked about finishing his degree on Monday, Rice was on his way to watch his 14-year-old daughter, Rayven, play in a youth lacrosse game. He also has coached his 9-year-old son, Jaylen, in football, describing his life as “kids, kids, kids, and kids sports, kids sports, kid sports.” He is there for them, and when he decided in the fall of 2024 to finish his degree, they were there for him.

He often found himself working on his homework at the kitchen table of his suburban Maryland home as his kids tackled theirs, which had its benefits. Rice could ask for their help navigating the technology that didn’t exist when he was last a student — but, of course, that often left him at the mercy of their grade-school taunts.

“They just kept laughing at me like, ‘Yo, Dad, you’re old, you’re old, you’re old,’” Rice said. “And I’m like, ‘All right! Could y’all just help me set this up so I can get my work done and submitted on time?’”

When Rice left Rutgers after the 2007 season, he had 75 credits toward his Bachelor of Science in Labor and Employment Relations. That meant completing the required work would be a long process, but once Rice got started, he discovered that he enjoyed it far more than he had in his first go-around.

He took a class in contract negotiations, a topic he understood well from the collective bargaining process he witnessed during his playing days with the Baltimore Ravens. He took another one in the history of hip-hop, and when it was time to pick a topic for a paper, he chose a rapper — Jadakiss — who is also a close friend from their shared hometown of Mount Vernon, New York.

“College is much more accessible now, but in some ways, it can be terrifying,” said Scott Walker, the longtime director of academic services at Rutgers. “But Ray was totally committed. He kicked ass.”

Rice completed his degree in January and sent a framed copy of the diploma to his grandparents, now octogenarians living in South Carolina. Their last name — Reed — was never his, Rice said, because his father was in jail when it was time to sign his birth certificate.

Rice never knew Calvin Reed, who was gunned down in Mount Vernon when Rice was just 1. He hasn’t talked publicly much about the father who wasn’t in his life, but Rice said he was on his mind as he worked toward his degree.

“I got this Reed side of me that no one really knows about,” Rice said. “It’s just beautiful to be able to do something that I felt like it was for them, but really, it’s for all of us. It’s for my kids, too.

“It’s one of my biggest achievements outside of sports and being a father and a husband. And I think that it’s (a reminder) that you gotta stick to your word. I made a promise, and I said, I gotta finish.”

Rice is the latest high-profile athlete to return to Rutgers to complete his degree, joining running back Isiah Pacheco, basketball standout Quincy Douby and soccer star Alexi Lalas. Will this moment be a springboard for Rice to finally join Douby and Lalas in the athletic department’s Hall of Fame this summer? He isn’t lobbying, even if he knows that many of his individual records will never be broken in Piscataway.

“I’d rather be a Hall of Fame dad, husband and person,” Rice said. “But any other honor outside of that, I’m so appreciative at this point in my life because I’m not looking for it. I’m just looking for my kids to have a better chance than me, and I would hope anybody in the situation would have that kind of forgiveness to take a deeper look at what I’ve done in my life.”

That now includes being a Rutgers graduate. It might have taken Rice 6,692 days after leaving the university to walk onto that stage to get his diploma, but this was a promise he wasn’t going to break.

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