Former Football Player is on His Way to Outer Space http://redorbit.com/news/space/593738/former_football_player_is_on_his_way_t o_outer_space/index.html
By Jim Hodges The phone calls and e-mails continue to arrive, from NASA Langley Research Center where he worked for nine years, from former teammates at Richmond where he played for four years, from friends in Lynchburg where he grew up. >From kids everywhere. Leland Melvin is one part memory, one part future that is scheduled to include flying on the space shuttle to the International Space Station next fall. And Melvin is one part lesson, mostly for the children who have heard him speak about science and engineering, and about how life isn't just about playing video games and sports. They listen because he enjoys video games and played sports. But only to a point. "I tell kids to play these games," Melvin said Monday in an interview with the Daily Press. "But I tell them, not only use video games, learn how they work. Then you can become an engineer and develop Xbox 20 and get paid a million dollars." It's all part of making sure children have someplace to go when a dream dies. One dream died for him when he finished as a record-setting wide receiver at Richmond, then learned what happens when you no longer can run a 4.45-second 40-yard dash in a National Football League training camp. "I got injured in football," he says. "I pulled a hamstring (in camp with the Detroit Lions)." He had a science degree from Richmond, which earned him a job with NASA Langley, where he worked for nine years before joining the astronaut program. He shared an office with Bill Prosser, himself a former football player at William and Mary. "My kids called him 'Uncle Le-le,' " Prosser says. The link with children comes naturally. Even though the 42-year-old Melvin has none of his own, children listen. "So many youngsters want to be an athlete, a rapper," he says. "In my case, I made it to the highest ranks of football, and I want to echo that to kids: go for it. But have something to fall back on." The genesis for his "something to fall back on" came when parents read to him before he could read to himself. "His favorite book was 'Curious George,'" says Grace Melvin, who handled the reading for her son in their home in Lynchburg and left sports to husband Deems. Leland Melvin developed his own curiosity with a chemistry set in first grade. "What grabbed me was, I think I blew up the carpet or something," he says laughing. "Man, that's curiosity." And he developed his own support group, which included his parents and Jimmy Green, his football coach in Lynchburg who called a play - twice - that earned Melvin a scholarship to Richmond. "I was being looked at by Richmond, and I dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone (in his senior year at Heritage High)," Melvin says. The Richmond recruiter, Morgan Hout, was in the stands, watching. "Jimmy Green saw (Hout) and called the same play the next time we had the ball," Melvin says. "This time I was in the end zone with the ball in my hand when Hout looked back. I think he thought that, 'If he can come back from failure like that, maybe he can play for us.' " It's another lesson. You succeed with help. "If you don't have a support system, you've got to find one that can give you hope and vision," Melvin says. "If kids can see where they want to go, all of the pieces and parts will fit in somehow." They have for him, and now there is a countdown to his first ride into space. "Think about it," he says. "I've been waiting for eight years to get this opportunity. All of the training involved, the bonding with the crew, has been like two-a-day practices. Now it's like coming out and winning the first game, beating Virginia Tech in Blacksburg." He played on the last Richmond team to do that, in 1985. It was a team that went without him for most of two days of practice every week. "They called me 'Larry Lab,' " he says. "The hard practices were Tuesday and Wednesday, and I had labs those days. I would pop out there 15 minutes before practice was over wearing a white jersey while everybody else was dirty and tired. "If you want to make it in chemistry and there's no night-time lab, you have to do that." It's part of making sure you have a place to land when the game ends and life begins. Gregory S. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
