DetNews article on Norfleet

Maybe he gets two in the bowl game?

I had called he was going to score at least two kick return TDs this season which is tough for a first year guy

Why? I mean, I guess everything's tough for a first year guy, but returning kicks relies more on  natural athleticism and ability more than....well really any position. I guess it takes time to understand how your blocks are supposed to develop, but other than that I can't really see how experience helps all that much. The top 4 kick returners in the country (based on average yards) are all either sophomores or freshmen. In fact, none of the top 10 are seniors.

His mom said he ate the chips. I can't imagine what that did to him internally. Good kid, great story!

Industrial hygienist here, i'd imagine that lead is the most common and well known health issue that Detroiters (especially kids) face, but off the top of my head, i'd suspect that there are issues with a host of heavy metals, asbestos, and industrial pollutants. Some won't be found without top-flight medical care, and others have longer latency periods that will keep them hidden. I've read that the urban agriculture boom in Detroit could be problematic because of industrial contamination of the soil and uptake by garden crops (also former professional horticulturist). Heavy metals don't go away, they just recycle.

And of course the problem with these pollutants in residential areas is that removing them is time consuming and expensive. Arson and standard demolition are likely to spread rather than remove the problem.

Yes, and before anyone judges a kid for eating it, you should know that lead makes things taste sweet.

What a wonderful woman Norfleet's grandmother is. It's great to see the strong relationship Norfleet has with her. How sad that not only his father but his mother were either absent, incompetent, incapable, irresponsible, negligent, or some combination thereof.

The statistics are brutal for the prospects of children of single mothers. Young, single motherhood is the single largest factor leading to failure in children. Children of single moms are:

• Twice as likely to drop out of High School.
• One and a half times as likely to be idle.
• have a Lower GPA.
• Lower college aspirations.
• Poorer attendance records.
• Higher rate of divorce.
• 1/3 less income (higher rate of poverty.)

It would be interesting to know what percentage of Michigan students come from one or two parent households (regardless of marital status.) For Norfleet to make it out of Detroit to UofM, he already is a huge success story.

By working through his disability and overcoming his circumstances. I'll bet Norfleet works harder than 90% of undergrads at Michigan.

I don't get guys like you. Are you looking for a homogenous student body?

Norfleet sounds like a wonderful young man. It sounds like he's got a plan and will do anything he can to execute it. He will be a productive member of society and make us proud to call him a fellow alumn. That's more than you can say about the bevy of "smart" students you get every year that get lost and flame out.

Funny that somebody questioning Norfleet's qualifications confuses the phrase "raises the question" with a technical term for a specific type of informal logical fallacy.

Glass houses, my friend. As a less snarky response, don't confuse reading disabilities with a lack of intelligence. Think about people with, say, dyslexia. They're no less intelligent on the whole than your average person, and someone with outstanding intelligence might very well not be able to read well. You might say "if you can't read well, you're gonna have a bad time", and that might be true, but doesn't the same thing apply to the blind? But yet surely you wouldn't say that no blind people should get into Michigan. We're so much more judgmental about disabilities when we can't see physical manifestations of them; we assume that they just boil down to unintelligence.

While we're questioning others' intelligence...

http://begthequestion.info/

Shockingly, people can improve their lives through hard work and assistance from others, even those with learning disabilities. I'm sure it helped that Norfleet it's an elite athlete, but schools were once designed to actually help all people learn, not just those with the best skill set.

I did some work with Michigan's Services for Students with Disabilities while I was at UofM.  There are THOUSANDS of students at Michigan that have some sort of "disability." These deficiencies range from paralysis, to blindness, from ADHD, anxiety, to mild autism.  Outside of those students with ovious physical limitations there is no way to tell who these students are. Many of them are involved in research and some have gone on to law and medical schools.  It's not a question of intelligence, as many here have already mentioned.  These students just need a different way to digest/learn/obtain information before they can put it to practical use.  Standard books and notes are not for everyone.

Roy Roundtree has already disproven the tired, outdated stereotype that students with learning disabilities "don't deserve to go to the University of Michigan."

Norfleet obviously had to work his ass off to get to where he is now.  If you are going to be so critical of a student like Norfleet, maybe you should consult a style manual and learn the difference between "begging a question" and raising a question.

and yet he will still have more bowl games.

Why are you here? Get lost troll!

It takes a special kind of douchebag to troll a Michigan blog on Christmas Eve, congratulations on making us think all Buckeyes are assholes (although that's not the truth.)

You do understand that all publicly funded universities are required by federal law to make classroom and testing accommodations for individuals with disabilities, right?