Fmr FSU football star inspires Indian health plan

WASHINGTON — Myron Rolle knew about the challenges of diabetes from his father and his premed classes.

But when the football star at Florida State learned that many American Indian children suffer from the disease, he decided to do something about it.

Working with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the namesake of his college football team, Rolle created a program for fifth graders that encourages healthy lifestyles and physical fitness. The program has been such a hit that the Interior Department is expanding it as a model program on reservations in New Mexico and Arizona.

“We hope that this is just the beginning,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, adding that Rolle’s curriculum could play a larger role in the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Education, which serves 42,000 students in 183 schools and dormitories in 23 states.

“Through my collegiate years I felt that I had success as a student-athlete, but I didn’t quite have a presence in the community that I wanted,” Rolle said Wednesday at a news conference with Salazar.

“The kids acquired so much knowledge in a six-week time period. They worked in a fun, competitive, incentive-based way — they just really enjoyed themselves,” Rolle said.

Rolle, 22, departs next week on a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he plans to pursue a one-year master’s degree in medical anthropology. During the year, Rolle will also prepare for the 2010 NFL Draft and has been projected as an early round pick.

Rolle said he was inspired to develop the program as he prepared for the scholarship interviews and read a newspaper story about Native American children who suffer from high rates of diabetes and obesity. The issue was personal for Rolle — his father, Whitney, suffers from Type 2 diabetes.

“Immediately my mind started to search for ways to help,” Rolle said.

Rolle, of Galloway, N.J., earned his bachelor’s degree in two and a half years, and took graduate courses at Florida State during his final collegiate football season last year. He chose to defer a pro career for a year to study at Oxford, modeling his path after former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, a Rhodes scholar and NBA star with the New York Knicks.

An aspiring doctor, Rolle developed his curriculum at a Seminole charter school in Okeechobee, Fla. During breaks from his studies at Oxford, Rolle plans to visit five schools in New Mexico and Arizona that will participate in the program.

(This version CORRECTS erroneous reference to Rolle as All-American.)