Despite being projected as a second-round pick in 2018 following an award-winning season, Bryce Love elected to return to school for his final year of eligibility due to unfinished business.
Stanford lost to USC in the PAC-12 Championship Game and Love had yet to complete his degree. He looked at his final year of eligibility with a longer view, understanding that his life was more than football.
Soon after scoring his first competitive touchdown at five years old, Love contracted pneumonia which would set him on the course to want to be a doctor. Going from being very sick to healthy made the doctors superheroes in his eyes. His experience in a hospital when he was a young kid made Love admire doctors along with running backs like Barry Sanders, LaDainian Tomlinson and Walter Payton.
In order to pursue his dream of being a doctor, Love majored in human biology at Stanford and earned PAC-12 all-academic honors twice.
Love also spent time during the football season working at the lab of Michael Longaker, a surgeon who specializes in stem cell research, for a few days a week. There, Love was aiding Ph.D. candidates, medical students and doctors, as well as learning more about how to grow cells and analyze wounds.
While Love is interested in stem cell research and therapy and spent much of his coursework studying it, he remains adamant on being a pediatrician. Love hopes to help those in disadvantaged areas and make a difference for children, similar to how the doctors helped him. Love also hopes that his determination of playing football while pursuing a medical career can show young kids that they can reach their goals without compromise.
