TCU Senior A Rhodes Scholar Finalist
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
FORT WORTH (CBS11) - For 22-year-old Caylin Moore, playing college football was both a dream and an escape growing up in inner city Los Angeles.
"It is not abnormal to walk outside the house and see drug syringes on the ground and see crack pipes. You'll see blood on the ground, bullets," said Moore. "We would look to the ground, and we would see all these horrible things, but we would look to the skies, and we would see our dreams."
Now his dreams have surpassed football.
Moore, a senior at TCU, learned last week that he is a finalist for a coveted Rhodes Scholarship.
"I couldn't even talk. I literally just got up and I walked. I must have walked for like two miles," he said.
His first call was to his mother, because he says the credit goes to her and God. Despite abuse and poverty, she committed herself to raising children who could choose their destiny.
"I never saw these blessings coming, and for my mom, that confirms to her that she was right," said Moore. "When she decided that even though we were in this area, in the 'hood, the 'hood would not live in us."
Football lead him to Marist College, and he transferred to TCU last year.
Moore wanted his father to see him play football on TV. He is in prison, serving a life sentence for murder.
"Pretty much I would not stop playing football until my father could see me play from the prison," said Moore.
He hopes he will soon tell his parents he is a Rhodes Scholar. But either way, he sees educational policy in his future - and a run for office.
"I think I have a unique perspective. I think I have a unique story to tell, and I think I have unique things to offer to the world," he said.
Moore's interview with the Rhodes Scholarship Committee is on November 19 in Los Angeles. There has only been one Rhodes Scholar in the history of TCU, and that was in 1975.
(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
