Jordan says freshman season was building block

When Ohio State left guard Michael Jordan speaks with reporters, he is all business — polite but quite serious.

Some of that may be a carryover from last year, when he earned a starting job as a true freshman and wanted to show he was mature enough to handle it. But Billy Price sees another side of Jordan.

Jones took to Twitter with a message for Rosen: “Chill, bro. Play school.”

Rosen’s comments, taken in full context, actually jibe with Jones’ current belief that school is important. (The former Buckeyes’ celebrity QB, who received his degree from Ohio State in May, has evolved from anti-academic complainer into educational proponent.) No matter. Jones simply saw an opportunity to be cute and clever in delivering his pro-classroom message.

Rosen’s main point is that football and academics are in conflict because it is difficult to succeed at either by focusing on both.

“Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs,” he said. “No one in their right mind should have a football player’s schedule, and go to school.”

Rosen, who is majoring in economics, went on to say that football dents his ability to take some classes. He cited the example of needing to take a class that was only offered during the spring, but football practice precluded him from doing so.

Intrigued by Rosen’s viewpoint, and thinking back to Jones’ controversial tweet about classes being pointless, I wondered what former college players think about the value of a college education. Is it one of those things that sounds good mostly because it sounds good, but in practice lacks real-life application?

In other words, is it fair to suggest that once you play for Ohio State it doesn’t matter what classes you attended — or didn’t attend — or what grades you received? At least in Columbus, a former football player’s prospects for promising employment rate extremely high because everyone wants to hire a Buckeye.

Or the other view, that a college education is critical to making a successful living once football moves from the windshield into the rearview mirror. Considering fewer than 2 percent of college seniors go on to play in the NFL, having a college degree looks good on the resume.

I turned to former Ohio State punter A.J. Trapasso, who after a stint in the NFL is a successful sales manager for a medical supply company. The Pickerington native admits he was never the model student at OSU, and in hindsight wishes he had applied himself more to his studies. But he is quick to point out that college classes are about more than career preparation. They also provide life perspective.

“If you eliminate the education part, just as a fun social experiment, I think you would see that without college you would have such a myopic viewpoint, because you did not interact with anybody,” Trapasso said.

The former punter shared that he attended a women in politics class at Ohio State that sparked robust and healthy class debate.

“I was right,” he said, chuckling. “But more importantly, without that college class I would not have gotten opposing viewpoints from different backgrounds and cultures.”

Trapasso’s refreshing outlook triggered the thought that isolating athletes from the general student population is counterproductive to educational growth. Two years ago, during an Ohio State practice that was opened to non-football students, a Buckeyes receiver told me he struggled relating to the non-athletes. How unfortunate. Universities should fight the trend to separate football players from their non-football peers.

Colleges should listen to voices like Rosen’s, too, and commit to making a student-athlete’s education easier to navigate for both the student and the athlete.