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Ray Rice will graduate from Rutgers 6,692 days after declaring for the NFL Draft. He made a promise to his grandparents to earn his degree while pursuing his football career.
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Ray Rice made a promise. He told his grandparents, James and Amelia Reed, that he would get his college degree someday. He swore to them that even as he chased his NFL dream, he wouldnât forget the reason he came to Rutgers in the first place.
That moment has arrived. Exactly 6,692 days after Rice declared for the NFL Draft as a record-setting junior, he will walk across the stage on Tuesday and receive his diploma. The player most responsible for the football programâs ascension will graduate with athletes nearly half his age, and yes, he knows that will lead to more than a few double takes.
Rice took online classes with many of those current Scarlet Knights, and even from the other end of his computer screen, the 39-year-old Super Bowl-winning running back couldnât exactly keep a low profile.
âListen, I canât hide. Iâm in school, man!â Rice told NJ.com on Monday afternoon with a laugh. âWhen the teacher was on a break, Iâd hear the guys say things like, âYo, thatâs the legend in here, man. Thatâs the OG!â Iâd be like, âYou know I can hear yâall, right?ââ
Rice didnât do this for the attention, although heâll get plenty of that when photos of him in that scarlet gown hit social media. He also didnât do this to change the hardened opinions about him and the one tragic mistake that has shaped his life, although it is time for people to view that moment in the context of all he has done since.
In 2014, Riceâs pro career came to a crashing halt after TMZ aired a shocking video of him punching his then-fiancĂ©e and now wife, Janay, in the face in an Atlantic City elevator. He has worked over the past 16 years to atone for that moment, accepting countless invitations to speak to youth, high school and college teams about avoiding his mistake. He also has confronted what he called the âintergenerational traumasâ of his life to make himself a better husband, father and man.
âItâs not a redemption story. Itâs just kind of how I live my life,â Rice said. But it is a positive example for young people â including the two most important ones in his life.
Ray Rice returned to Rutgers to fulfill a promise he made to his grandparents to earn his college degree.
It has been 6,692 days since Ray Rice declared for the NFL Draft as a record-setting junior.
Ray Rice faced the challenge of being recognized by younger students, who referred to him as 'the legend' during online classes.
Ray Rice's graduation signifies his commitment to education and personal growth, separate from his past controversies in the NFL.
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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 âkids, kids, kids, and kids sports, kids sports, kid sports.â 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 didnât exist when he was last a student â but, of course, that often left him at the mercy of their grade-school taunts.
âThey just kept laughing at me like, âYo, Dad, youâre old, youâre old, youâre old,ââ Rice said. âAnd Iâm like, âAll right! Could yâall just help me set this up so I can get my work done and submitted on time?ââ
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 â Jadakiss â who is also a close friend from their shared hometown of Mount Vernon, New York.
âCollege is much more accessible now, but in some ways, it can be terrifying,â said Scott Walker, the longtime director of academic services at Rutgers. âBut Ray was totally committed. He kicked ass.â
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 â Reed â 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 hasnât talked publicly much about the father who wasnât in his life, but Rice said he was on his mind as he worked toward his degree.
âI got this Reed side of me that no one really knows about,â Rice said. âItâs just beautiful to be able to do something that I felt like it was for them, but really, itâs for all of us. Itâs for my kids, too.
âItâs one of my biggest achievements outside of sports and being a father and a husband. And I think that itâs (a reminder) that you gotta stick to your word. I made a promise, and I said, I gotta finish.â
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 departmentâs Hall of Fame this summer? He isnât lobbying, even if he knows that many of his individual records will never be broken in Piscataway.
âIâd rather be a Hall of Fame dad, husband and person,â Rice said. âBut any other honor outside of that, Iâm so appreciative at this point in my life because Iâm not looking for it. Iâm 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 Iâve done in my life.â
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 wasnât going to break.
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