I mean that in many ways beyond on the football field.  In the classroom.  As a person. 

How a High School kid has that much perspective is beyond me.  As a senior in HS, I was most worried about my own junk.  Floyd sees the world in a very mature way, which is impressive. 

And, all of a sudden, the South Bend Trib isn’t the worst paper in the nation, as they’ve actually written a couple articles that don’t trash the program.  2 in a row! Keep it up Trib, and we won’t have to hate you in 2008.

The article has a few great quotes…

“Sitting there and looking at stuff, I just got the feeling that this is the place for me,” the 6-foot-3, 205-pound Minnesotan said recently during preparations for Saturday’s U.S. Army All-American Bowl at the Alamodome.

“I didn’t get a feeling like that from anywhere else as much as Notre Dame. ‘This is the spot for me. This is a place I can have a career and keep going.’ It was just a good school for me to go to.”

 ”I like to be pushed,” Floyd said of his attraction to Notre Dame. “I know Charlie Weis is big on academics and stuff like that. Being pushed really makes me perform better both in the classroom and on the football field. I mean, that’s what I kind of like.

“Then there’s the players. They’re going through this tough season and yet they make you feel like you’re home. I hadn’t known that. You’re coming in as a freshman, you already have friends there that want to be your friend. They’re easy to communicate with, easy to talk to and stuff like that. It makes you feel like you’re supposed to be there.”

Not surprisingly, Floyd cites things beyond football for his reasons for picking the Irish - a feeling of fitting in, friendship, and the desire to be pushed.  Including in the classroom!  You will not find that in many (any?) kids heading to UF, USC, etc.

It also has come out that former ND player Matt Carufel did indeed push Mike to not pick the Irish.  Thankfully, all that perspective served Mike well in this situation as well:

“He told me I should change my options and stuff like that,” Floyd said, “but I mean, I told him, ‘Notre Dame is the spot for me and I know it’s a spot for me.’ I also know not everybody has a good experience everywhere. I don’t think I’m going to have a bad experience, like he did. It’s just some people have bad experiences where they are and some people don’t, so that’s how it is.”

Where does a young Mike Floyd, football player extraordinaire gain all this perspective?  From, in my opinion, one heck of a parent, and some fairly worldly experiences for an 18 year old kid:

“What makes me strong, what make me who I am are things like a service trip I went on over spring break last year to Venezuela,” he said. “The part we went to, those people didn’t have anything, but they smile all the time. I mean, looking at that made me not want to take anything for granted. It made me feel blessed with what I’ve got.”

So did the talks with his mom, Theresa Romero, about how her lack of appreciation for education at her son’s age came back to bite her later in life. Like when Floyd wanted to attend Cretin-Derham Hall, but the tuition fees were so daunting she initially was reduced to tears.

 ”I’m going on a Civil Rights trip pretty soon with a couple of people to all the southern states to look at different things,” he said. “I think that’ll be a real mind-opening trip for everybody who goes. I can’t wait.”

There’s no wavering going on with a kid like this.  He’s just too solid, too strong and too focused.  I have a feeling, from everything we’ve read and seen with this class, that Mike represents all the players in this class.  And I get why others like Robinson and Page are interested to join it.  It’s a bit more special than I think any of us have realized up to this point.

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• (Again) Michael Floyd is a Stud
• Michael Floyd Talks about Choosing the Irish
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