GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Stephen Alli was the typical incoming freshman when he arrived at the University of Florida. A standout prep athlete with his pick of multiple scholarship offers, Alli was going to take college football by storm and move on in three years. Four years, tops.
"That was the goal," Alli said earlier this week.
Circumstances, however, altered the plan. Injuries, specifically. By the time he was done with football after four seasons, Alli had undergone more surgeries (7) than he had pass receptions (3). Tragic? As far as his football career, certainly.
Stephen Alli in 2012
But there's a reason the term "student-athlete" puts those two words in their respective order. Coupled with the opportunity to produce on the field is the commensurate one in the classroom. On that front, Alli is a statistical astonishment. He may have only caught three passes as a Gator, but Friday he'll walk to his fourth UF degree.
This one will be a doctorate.
Alli will receive his PhD in Counseling Education, putting him at the top of
a summer class of 33 student-athletes that will receive degrees during the weekend's commencement ceremonies at Exactech Arena. Among those nearly three dozen graduating Gators will be seven who completed master's degrees, six who will do so Cum Laude and another six who will compete in the fall while taking graduate courses. Alli, 28, will be in rarified air as far as taking part in the doctoral commencement exercise, having defended his dissertation last month and thus completing work on his PhD in Counseling Education.
Context: Football academic advisors
Jason Storch and
Tony Meacham cannot recall a UF football player earning a PhD here.
"He's amazing," said
Allison Forrest. "In some ways, he's been like a mentor to me."
Certainly an inspiration. Forrest is a career development coordinator at the Hawkins Center, the academic arm of the University Athletic Association. She's working on her PhD also, with her research similar to that of Alli's. His dissertation — "The Relationship of Parental Involvement and Student-Athlete Career Development" — zeroed in on preparation for life after sports.
"Both our passions are career readiness," Forrest said. "He's lived it."
Alli, from Toronto, became a much-sought football and basketball prospect at Andover (N.H.) Proctor Academy. He had his pick of dozens of offers and originally committed to Stanford, which offered him a chance to play both sports, before flipping to Florida.
"My parents always stressed academics," Alli said. "I wanted to get a strong degree to make sure if football didn't work out that I'd be set. But when I got here, of course, the NFL was my goal."
That's the way all players think.
One of Stephen Alli's three career receptions was a six-yarder thrown by Jordan Reed in a 2010 win at Vanderbilt.
Alli came to Gainesville as an early enrollee in the spring of 2009, still just 17 years old, and went on to take a redshirt season that fall. Over the next two seasons, the 6-foot-6, 215-pound wideout played in all 25 of Florida's games, almost exclusively on special teams. His highlight: recovering an onsides kick with just over two minutes left to help secure a win over Ohio State in the Gator Bowl to cap the 2011 season. On offense, he totaled three catches for 17 yards.
Then came a calamitous run of injuries, leading to three pelvic surgeries, plus operations on a torn rotator cuff and two hernias, among others.
"I really started thinking about the future at that point," he said.
Alli got his undergraduate degree in psychology in three and a half years, then added a master's in mental health counseling, even though injuries kept him off the field during his final two seasons. In 2015, after completing work toward a second master's in business management, Alli decided to chase his PhD in a discipline he was familiar with.
"What kept me in this field was my experience in trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I had worked with men and women who were trying to make that transition from sports to life after sports, and seen how some struggle with it," Alli said. "It can be a daunting task and that's what kind of fueled my passion in this area."
His dissertation examined the role parents have in the life of the student-athlete and the decisions that he or she makes and how parents impact those decisions relative to their post-collegiate careers.
Now, with 10 years of UF academics on his resume, Alli plans to become a practitioner and apply his research as a counselor or in clinical settings.
Introducing,
"Dr. Stephen Alli."
Has a nice ring to it.
"I've called this place home for a decade, literally, so now I'll be saying goodbye to an era of my life," Alli said. "I came here as a kid and I'm leaving here a completely different person. You want to leave a place having grown, but I look back and can see myself going through several stages of my life and learning lessons along the way. Getting this PhD is kind of a final farewell for me here, but also a launching pad. I'm excited, a little nervous, but definitely ready for it."
