Bulldog bookworm Athlete Malcolm Mitchell encourages kids to read by Allyson Mann (MA ’92) photos by Andrew Davis Tucker
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alcolm Mitchell sits in front of 67 fifth-graders who’ve assembled in the media center at High Shoals Elementary School in Bishop. The UGA student and football player greets the children on this sunny February day and then asks a question. “Does anyone know why I’m here today?” “Because you’re awesome,” someone replies. Everyone laughs, including Mitchell, and then he gets serious. “I’m here because I read.”
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UGA wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell talked to 5th-graders at High Shoals Elementary School about the importance of reading and how it made him more confident: “Every time I used to talk, I used to say ‘Um.’ And I guess the more I began to read, the more words just started flowing in my head. So now they just come out.”
itchell may be as well known for reading as he is for athletics. A top recruit out of Valdosta, the wide receiver posted impressive numbers his first two seasons but was sidelined for a year after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament in the 2013 opener. Last fall he was back on the field, and the Bulldog Nation exhaled in relief when he announced that he would return for his senior season. But Mitchell has gotten just as much attention—if not more— for his off-the-field hobby. In August, UGA’s Athletic Association posted a video about his love of reading and how a chance encounter led to him joining a book club. While perusing bestsellers at Barnes & Noble, Mitchell asked a stranger, Kathy Rackley, for recommendations. In the course of conversation Rackley mentioned that she’d joined a book club, and Mitchell asked if he might be able to join too. Rackley explains her reply in the video. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t know if you want to join ours. We’re all 40-, 50- and 60-year-old women,’” she remembers. “And he said, ‘I don’t care. I just like to read.’” So Mitchell joined the book club, becoming fast friends with a group of women who are twice his age—or more. But stepping out of his comfort zone has had benefits, he tells the High Shoals students. “This is one of the things reading did for me—it brought me to meeting great people, great new people, just like today,” he says. “I just really want to encourage y’all just to keep reading, because it will make you smarter,” he says. “It’ll make you a better person. And some of you might come to really enjoy it and love it just as I do.”
JUNE 2015 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE
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