Florida Gators star running back Fred Taylor was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft and went on to have an amazing 13-year career in the NFL, amassing 14,079 total yards and 74 total TDs.
But Taylor had one uncompleted task at Gainsville- he was 19 credit hours shy of completing his Sociology degree.
It was something that nagged at him over the last two decades, and this past January he did something about it by secretly enrolling in the final online course he needed to fulfill his graduation requirements. He didn’t even tell his wife, Andrea, because he wanted to make sure he was all in first.
“I didn’t tell a soul,” he said in an interview with Florida Gators athletics. “I ended up telling [Andrea] about three or four weeks in because I wanted to know that I was all-in. I didn’t want to start and back out. After I got rolling and I got past the drop-add period, it was go-time. I buckled down and got it done.”
He completed his final requirements and got it done on Saturday when he walked at the commencement ceremony and received his degree in Sociology.
But he also accomplished one other thing; he fulfilled the promise he made to his grandmother that he would return to school and graduate.
This past October, Taylor quietly told his 82-year-old grandmother, Rosetta Lusane, that he was going to return to Florida to earn his degree, a promise he made to her when he left for the NFL in 1998.
Lusane was his primary caretaker growing up, and he didn’t want to let her down. As she lay sick in bed, suffering from dementia, Taylor’s words gave her some comfort.
“She did smile after I said it,” Taylor said. “Sometimes she would smile when she would get those glimpses of remembrance. Every now and then she would recognize the voice, the kiss, the smell. ‘I’m not going to break that promise. I’m going to go and graduate.’ I’m about to tear up right now.”
As a player, Taylor couldn’t take any classes due to his NFL schedule. And when you add raising a family into that equation, returning to school was almost impossible.
But he never forgot about his promise.
“I wasn’t a thousand percent sure that I wanted to finish, but always in the back of my mind, I knew I had promised my grandmother that I would get it done,” said Taylor.
