Stafford Earns Respect

This post is about someone I’d sworn was just another jock using the system to get through a decent amount of college before jumping into the NFL. 

I have had three classes with John Matthew Stafford, and rarely did he commit to coming for the finals, let alone class.  The first one freshman year was human geography and it was a joke.  He did take the midterm, but I’m pretty sure he only came four or five other times… Always late, you could recognise him from the jock sweats and big, backwards baseball cap that screamed “I’m an athlete, and I’m too good for you.” 

I work at Ramsey, where the football team practices on rainy days, and I heard him once say how he had so many other things to do besides go to a children’s hospital and see sick children with the team.  This is probably true, but have a heart!  How are we supposed to compete with Tebow if our team leader has that kind of view? 

The second class I had with him was in the SLC, nonverbal communication.  He showed up most of the time, and the professor made a point to include UGA football in his examples.  We even recieved extra credit for coming on Halloween in a costume and Matt came as “himself” before donning a scary mask.  This is an improvement… there was actual participation.

SPCM Group Project Fall 08

The third class took a few steps back for me.  Our proffessor insisted on reading out everyone’s name from the roster to do attendance, even though it was a small class.  John Matthew Stafford made a point to say each day, “Its Matthew, I go by Matt,”  and every day she would ignore him.  He also sat in the front row and blatently video chatted with his girlfriend for most of the class. 

The only memorable contribution to our class discussion I ever remember him making was the example of using a bloody polar bear’s corpse strewn across white snow in order to make people care about the shrinking envrionment.  Maybe I’m just bitter because I was lucky enough to have him placed in my group and had to make up for the work he didn’t do, but my stance on our great quarterback was not so hot.  I was unimpressed.

Then he became a Lion.  As he improved the team, I began to respect him a little.  He even came back to the Georgia v. Geaorgia Tech game in 2009 and was on the sidelines to see us win.  Surely he had better things to do.  It was Thanksgiving week and he could have been with family or his new team preparing for the next week’s game, but he came back to Georgia.  Pretty cool thing for someone who went number 1 in the NFL Draft to do.  I noticed, and I looked into it.  Seems our Stafford has gone off and gotten a bit better at presenting himself.

Just look at this epic game against the Browns and see if you don’t have major respect points:   

By the way, this video has been viewed 173,500 times already.

He went injured into a game to give his team the win.  Wow.  You’ve grown up some Matty, come a long way from “I’ve got other stuff to do…”

Or this down-to-earth interview after the draft: 

I’m sure Matthew Stafford has always been a good person, but it takes publicizing events and showing up when you really aren’t expected to (going for the win & being at the Tech game) to garner respect.  Matthew Stafford has mine now, and I’m glad to see he has come into his own.  When it all comes down to it, I guess I don’t blame him for skating through school…I guess I would have done the same.

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