University of Georgia Athletics
Mitchell Honored At Phi Kappa Phi Event
April 27, 2023 | Football, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
When Malcolm Mitchell stepped to the microphone inside the UGA Chapel on Wednesday afternoon, he wasn't there because he was a very good wide receiver for the Georgia Bulldogs. He wasn't there because he won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots at the end of his rookie season in the NFL.
Mitchell, now 29 and out of football for four years, was there as the keynote speaker for the Phi Kappa Phi honor society's spring initiation, during its 100th anniversary celebration. He was also there as an alumni member inductee and as the recipient of the Georgia chapter's Love of Learning Award.
"It's still a bit surreal because of my experience growing up," he said in an interview before the event. "As a child, I considered my greatest value to be as an athlete and what I could provide to a football team. And in many ways, that mentality followed me for a very long time.
"I've had that mentality longer than I've had this newfound respect for myself as a thinker."
Mitchell retired from football in 2019 due to knee problems, and then fully threw himself into writing — he's written multiple children's books with more on the way — and getting young people to read. As the founder and executive director of the Share the Magic Foundation, Mitchell spends a lot of time at schools and libraries sharing with children his story and how his passion for books changed his life.
Not much of a reader when he arrived at Georgia, Mitchell now famously stumbled into a love of reading by joining a book club comprised of older women in Athens. And before his senior year, at age 21, he wrote his first children's book, "The Magician's Hat."
Football is still part of Mitchell's life and his story, and always will be. He wears the Super Bowl ring he helped the Patriots win on Feb. 5, 2017, when they rallied from 28-3 down against the Atlanta Falcons. When he goes to schools, he'll toss a football around with the kids, just as he does with his 2-year-old at home. But other than that, his connection to the game is as a fan.
"I love the game, and I enjoy watching it. I'll watch every Georgia game, and if they're home, I'm in the stands," he said. "I watch NFL games on Sunday, but I'm a fan. My relationship with it is not as complex or dense as it once was."
Two very different things are happening this week: the NFL Draft begins Thursday, and it's also National Library Week. Guess which one he was aware of.
"Football is still very wrapped up into my path of impact, because it is this reality that people pay attention to. I'd like to say I'm only in this room today because of my relationship with literacy, but that's not true," he said. "There's some component of me being an athlete here and me being part of a Super Bowl-winning team that makes it more appealing to have me on stage. I'm not ignorant of that, and I used to fight it, but now I lean into it."
Mitchell continues to lean into writing, as well. He is working on a children's book for Georgia's Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), as well as his first young-adult novel. The novel, so different from the picture books he's used to doing, has thus far proven to be a challenge. It's "causing a lot of stress," he said.
"I first started writing poetry and then moved to picture books, and young-adult literature is much more dense and detailed," he said.
So he's growing as an author.
"Yeah," he said with a laugh, "but growth requires pain."
Introducing Mitchell at the event was Georgia Senior Associate Athletic Director Glada Horvat, who oversees academics and eligibility. Horvat, who has been with the athletic department almost nonstop since she was a student worker in the early 1980s, is also the Phi Kappa Phi Georgia chapter's treasurer.
Horvat spoke of first learning about Mitchell while he was still playing at Valdosta High School. Mitchell arrived as a freshman in 2011 and, she said, it "has been a true pleasure to work with" him ever since. She even attends Share the Magic's big annual fundraiser in Atlanta, "A Magical Evening of Literacy."
The Malcolm Mitchell that then-head coach Mark Richt recruited was a very different person from the one that graduated from Georgia in 2015. And as Richt sat among the crowd in the Chapel for Wednesday's event, the Mitchell on stage — poised, worldly, a professional writer dedicated to helping children not only learn to read but learn to love the wondrous worlds that can be found in books — that Mitchell has continued to evolve.
On his website, malcolmmitchell.com, the first words that hit you form his message and mission: "To Succeed, You Must Read." Those words go hand-in-hand with Phi Kappa Phi's motto: "Let the love of learning rule humanity."
The honor society selects honorees from all academic disciplines and has chapters at more than 300 campuses in the U.S. There is a long list of Georgia student-athlete inductees over the years, including swimmer Callie Dickinson, a nominee for this year's SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship, who was inducted last year.
Among the Bulldog legends that have preceded Mitchell as a speaker at Phi Kappa Phi's initiation are former football coach and athletic director Vince Dooley and former swimming and diving head coach Jack Bauerle.
In all respects, Mitchell is in excellent company. Just as they are with him, a gifted, passionate and evolving man trying to make a difference in the world — while telling some good stories along the way.
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
