His name is Wayne Lyons. (Read the Andy Staples article.)

He is an Ed Reed-like safety at a Florida prep school (sure-to-be 5-star recruit).

He is also a Will Hunting in the classroom (5.0 GPA, sure-to-be valedictorian).

This combination of talent and smarts, and hard work are the epitome of human greatness.

Guess what? That kind of combination just doesn’t happen every day. Most people only have the time and talent to be great in on area. For example if you’re twelve, and can throw an 80mph fastball, the chances are that your caretakers are going to work cultivating that skill at the expense of others. Covalent bonds in chemistry can wait, Johnny has to work on his slider. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, just the way it is. Johnny’s own energy would be focused mostly on his athletic skill, leaving little for his mental development. (Vice Versa example, Bill Gates was way too busy taking computers apart to work on his cross-over dribble much.)

In fact, this combination happens so rarely, that I’m quite sure institutions of higher learning would love to see what he is made of, and then proceed on to the cloning process. Hell, the powers that be at Notre Dame might even take that whole cloning idea to the Vatican for reconsideration to get a group of guys like this. (Hyperbole folks, just hyperbole). To be able to get a guy that could play in the NFL, but could just as likely become a heart surgeon is any university president’s wet dream. Are you kidding me? 5-star talent without the baggage of mental ineptitude of guys that like to claw out their opponent’s eye, or rob convenience stores with their school’s gear on? Sign them up.

Wayne Lyons is so rare he can bat 1.000. Perfect. That is, with his resume, he can apply to 50 schools, and get 50 scholarship offers (per the Staples’ article). Nobody bats 1.000. Not Babe Ruth. Not Elvis. Not the president of the United States. (My dad told me this long ago when I struck out with a beautiful girl. Okay, okay, she wasn’t beautiful, she was slightly above average. Like a 6, and I still struck out.)

I bring this rare case up because of Notre Dame’s desires to enroll students who excel in both the classroom, and on the field. Notre Dame demands excellence. In everything.

The problem is, while that sounds good and everything, real-life examples much harder to find (Note my explanation from the beginning of this post.). That’s why I say (only half-jokingly) that these schools would want to clone Wayne Lyons. How many people can you name that are excellent mentally and physically? Myron Rolle is a name that comes to mind (Rhodes Scholar). Peyton Manning could run for office. I could see Grant Hill owning a Fortune 500 company. Other than that, there’s probably not a lot of guys in professional leagues that you would want working on your retirement plan.

The nature of excelling in different areas is what makes things difficult for Notre Dame. Does the school hope to find a ton of Wayne Lyons’s and Myron Rolle’s (not likely). Do they accept that the best athletes will often take the easy road, just honing their athletic talents, and not bother competing with the USC’s? Or do they quietly loosen a few academic restrictions to compete?

I don’t know the answer, but I do believe that Notre Dame must find an answer. And the answer can’t be cloning Wayne Lyons.