Former NFL star Jerome Bettis returns to Notre Dame
Thirty years after his final season as a running back for the University of Notre Dame, Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis is back at his alma mater to finish his college degree. Bettis “The Bus”, 49, made a promise to his mother to get his college degree 18 years after retiring from a legendary career with the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers. Now he months away from getting his Business degree and fulfilling that promise.
Bettis left early for the NFL draft after his junior season with Notre Dame and was selected 10th overall in the first round by the Rams in 1993. The NFL’s eighth all-time leading rusher once plowed right through the heart of defenses and is now about to be part of the graduating class of 2022. He already has a Super Bowl ring and will soon add a diploma to his list of accomplishments.
Most of his entire college and NFL career came before most of the current students were born but his classmates all know who he is. Bettis said he is a dinosaur in the sense of school and struggles with the technology but said he’s a much better student because he wants to learn. He said “I promised my mother that I would get my degree. In my immediate family, I’ll be the first person to graduate from college. But most importantly, I have two children. For them to see dad finish a commitment that he set out some 27 years ago, for me to complete that, I think it says a lot to them.”
His mother, Gladys, is a breast cancer survivor who famously starred alongside her son in Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials in the early 2000s. His father, Johnnie Bettis, died at 61 from a heart attack in 2006. Bettis is the only one of the 21 players from his original football class at Notre Dame who has not gotten his degree and he is looking forward to seeing his mother beaming with pride as he gets his diploma.
