Paris earns place at MIT, where he’ll dabble in football
It’s Saturday morning at the Paris house in Westwood, just days before Christmas.
Jack Paris, wearing green pajama bottoms and a blue Loyola High T-shirt, is sitting at a granite kitchen table staring at his laptop computer as family members gather to see if he has been accepted to MIT. “I’m nervous,” Paris says. “We’re all nervous,” his dad, mom and sister respond, almost in unison.
“I don’t want to click it,” he says.
“You got to,” his mom tells him.
With his left leg twitching back and forth, Paris finally gets up the courage to click on the link.
For nearly three seconds, there’s silence as his jaw drops and his mouth hangs open.
Finally, he blurts out, “I got in!”
“Oh my God!” his mom cries.
A 6-foot-2, 250-pound senior offensive and defensive lineman, Paris found out earlier in the fall that he had scored a perfect 36 on the ACT. In 2021, only 4,055 students out of nearly 1.3 million who took the exam accomplished that feat.
There were no TV cameras to capture either moment. Revealing an acceptance letter to MIT or a perfect ACT score doesn’t create enough drama for those whose lives revolve around breaking news about where five-star quarterbacks are headed or what school a celebrity teenage athlete with a million Instagram followers will be attending.
The MIT moment was recorded by Paris’ mother, Robyn, and the 17-year-old might have the last laugh, with his 4.5 grade-point average and the ability he showed last winter to pull off an amazing senior season, when he balanced football while taking advancedplacement calculus BC, AP physics mechanics, AP chemistry, AP English literature and AP economics.
“Just a great kid,” Cubs coach Drew Casani said.
Next month, Paris will participate with other Loyola athletes in a signing ceremony, even though you don’t sign a letter of intent to play football for MIT. He sacrificed plenty to make the moment happen.
He had to hide his cellphone after getting home from school each night so he could spend at least four hours focused on his studies with no interruptions.
“I would be at school all day, lifting, practicing, get home at 7,” he said. “I would take my phone, throw it on my bed, throw it behind my bed, put it in the other room, lock in, open my computer, open my books, get my pencils out and just do work anywhere from 7 to 10 or 11.
“Sometimes I would keep my phone next to me and that would make my homework take way longer. You have to get rid of the temptations and be really focused. It was hard.”
Paris’ father, Bradley, played football at Duke, so the son felt some pressure to earn a scholarship. His relatively small size for his position made him unlikely to attract interest from the likes of USC or UCLA, so he looked at the Ivy League. Then a friend from church who had played at MIT asked if he had considered it. Paris had to change his school schedule to add classes acceptable to MIT. He visited the school in Cambridge, Mass., and learned the students do more than just hang out with 3-D printers and in design labs.
“The kids are really smart but also interested in music, have cooking clubs, have fraternities, sororities and have diverse interests,” he said. “One thing I really like is they set aside two hours of time where no classes can be held, no labs. That’s time for students to explore other interests, play in a band, be in a play, play sports.”
So it’s MIT for Paris, who will major in economics, explore computer science and entrepreneurship, and dabble in football.
His path required sacrifice and commitment but he has no regrets.
“It was worth it,” he said. “Now I get to go to a great school.”