O’Neil Blake left Glenville State College in West Virginia in search
of a more challenging academic environment and a great football program.
He found both at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina,
where he began taking classes and practicing with the football team in
the summer of 2012.
He did well on the gridiron and in the classroom and graduated Magna Cum Laude in the spring of 2014. “I started graduate school the following fall,” he recalls. “I am currently in my final semester of graduate school here at LRU, and I am on course to graduate this May.” He is working toward his Master of Business Administration with a concentration on Health Care Administration.
In
spite of his workload, he is able to keep up with some of his
non-academic interests, such as African American history. The history of
Africans in North America is an often-grim subject that deals with some
of the worst aspects of humanity, but also some of the best. The first
Africans, kidnapped into slavery, arrived in North America around 1619.
American independence did not arrive until late in the next century, but
after it did slavery was still allowed, and even acknowledged in the
Constitution, which guaranteed the right to possess a “person held to
service or labor,” a clear reference to slavery. It was not until nearly
a hundred years later that slavery was abolished. Even then, another
hundred years passed before serious advances were made in civil rights.
Even with the election of an African American president, it is a journey
that has not yet come to an end.
O’Neil Blake also enjoys reading leadership literature. He has kept up his involvement with football as a graduate assistant and Cornerbacks Coach for the LRU football team.
Sources: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones
http://www.lrbears.com/profile.asp?playerID=2045
He did well on the gridiron and in the classroom and graduated Magna Cum Laude in the spring of 2014. “I started graduate school the following fall,” he recalls. “I am currently in my final semester of graduate school here at LRU, and I am on course to graduate this May.” He is working toward his Master of Business Administration with a concentration on Health Care Administration.
In
spite of his workload, he is able to keep up with some of his
non-academic interests, such as African American history. The history of
Africans in North America is an often-grim subject that deals with some
of the worst aspects of humanity, but also some of the best. The first
Africans, kidnapped into slavery, arrived in North America around 1619.
American independence did not arrive until late in the next century, but
after it did slavery was still allowed, and even acknowledged in the
Constitution, which guaranteed the right to possess a “person held to
service or labor,” a clear reference to slavery. It was not until nearly
a hundred years later that slavery was abolished. Even then, another
hundred years passed before serious advances were made in civil rights.
Even with the election of an African American president, it is a journey
that has not yet come to an end.O’Neil Blake also enjoys reading leadership literature. He has kept up his involvement with football as a graduate assistant and Cornerbacks Coach for the LRU football team.
Sources: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones
http://www.lrbears.com/profile.asp?playerID=2045
