The Graduate

Every year 32 American college seniors pass through a grueling application process to win a coveted Rhodes scholarship.

They get two years of all-expense paid study at Oxford University in England. More than that, they join a cen­tury’s worth of distinguished statesmen, scientists, artists, writers and teachers—men and women who went on to become some of the most successful people in their generation. Being named a Rhodes scholar is perhaps the highest honor an American college student can receive.

Which is why, when I began filling out the Rhodes application last year, I half wondered if I was crazy. My academic record wasn’t so great.

I got routinely suspended from school, starting in sixth grade. I was expelled outright from my junior high. I’d spent the better part of my early teens hanging out on the streets of Belling­ham, Washington, where it never seemed to stop raining.

I’d achieved a perfect grade average in the ninth grade—perfect Fs that is—in every class. And I’d topped that year off by getting arrested for vandalism. Tech­nically, when I began filling out the Rhodes application, I had a criminal record.

But like I said, I only half believed I was crazy. Want to know why? Stay with me.

My parents fought a lot, and the more they did the more I got into trouble at school. We were a churchgoing family, but that didn’t stop Mom and Dad’s marriage from fraying.

Actually, the whole family frayed. Dad was the stricter parent, the disciplinarian, and I was the defiant oldest son—I have a younger brother and sister, Ben and Bethany.

I fought with Dad, Mom intervened and soon they were fighting again. The only place I got the kind of attention I wanted was at school. And I got it by mouthing off to teachers, joking around in class. I’d been a good student. Not anymore.

I gravitated to a group of guys like me. We’d act out, get suspended—which was more like a reward than a punishment. We’d spend all day wandering the streets, scoring beer, smoking cigarettes and pot.

I even looked the part. Baggy black clothes, an anarchy symbol drawn on my head with permanent marker, heavy metal music blasting my earphones, songs with names like “Wait and Bleed,” “Fade to Black.”

Once, my school held an art contest. I submitted a picture of the earth stabbed with a giant spear encircled by flying demons.

By eighth grade my crowd had graduated to vandalism. One night in May I snuck out with a friend and used a red permanent marker to write the names of teachers I hated on the school gym walls. My friend cracked up.