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It isn’t easy to catch an All-Pro cornerback flat-footed, but that’s what happened to Seattle’s Richard Sherman on Wednesday when he stopped by a pre-calculus class at Compton Dominguez High, his alma mater, and was asked to solve a problem on the chalkboard.
Even though he graduated with a 4.17 grade-point average, and went on to get a degree from Stanford, Sherman was stumped. At some point, all the exponents and orthogonal angles in his head had to make room for a career in Xs, O’s and angles of pursuit.
“I can’t remember much past trigonometry,” he said sheepishly.
Typical of Sherman, he found a way around the problem, scanning the front row and finding a student to come up and work through it with him. And that in essence was his message to Dominguez students upon his return: You will be confronted with challenges, you need to use your intellect to get past them, and giving up is not an option.
“If you put in the work, put in the time, put in the effort, you’re going to reap the benefits,” said Sherman, who has returned to the school multiple times but surprised the students with Wednesday’s visit. “But if you don’t put in the work and the effort, you can’t expect to be successful.”
