I’ve been itching to post this one as the first post of 2012 ever since Andrew Becker mentioned it on Facebook. A bit of background first, though: Robert Griffin III is a college quarterback at Baylor University who just won the Heisman Trophy, which is the highest individual award one can obtain in US College Football. He is generally referred to as RG3 by media types and USA Today had a lengthy feature on him which begins with his propensity for wearing weird socks and concludes with the following:

So how best to describe Griffin? Perhaps it’s best to turn to the classics and ask Griffin’s former Latin professor for inspiration. (Yes, Latin. Doesn’t every starting quarterback who hopes to go to law school, compete in the Olympics and play in the NFL satisfy his foreign language requirement by taking Latin?) Needless to say, his former professor, Tommye Lou Davis, says Griffin was as fine a student as she’s had in 44 years of teaching noun declensions at Baylor. “Here is a Latin phrase that captures a little of who RG3 is,” Davis says. “Intellegens fortis celer dux integritatis est.” Which means Griffin is a bright, brave, fast leader with integrity. In other words, a little different.

An interesting Latin description and I immediately thought it must be a quote from somewhere, but, of course, I couldn’t place it. Then it hit me … Dr Davis has given us Classicist types a nice little ‘in joke’, no? I Won’t give it totally away, but think RG3 and think declension. Brilliant! Always teaching!

[by the way, ICWUDT is one of those Internet/texting abbreviations for “I see what you did there”]. Happy New Year and thanks to Dr Davis!