By John Frierson
Staff Writer
As Malcolm Mitchell walked through a quiet Stegeman Coliseum early Friday morning, sporting his old No. 26 jersey, he mused about his time as a Georgia football player a decade ago and the journey that had led him back to the Steg. He wasn't there to talk to the team about how to become a great receiver or a Super Bowl champion. No, he was there to read to about 1,000 second-graders.
"It's still very surreal," said Mitchell, who caught 174 passes and scored 16 touchdowns for the Bulldogs from 2011-15. "I've been doing it for 10 years now, and it still catches me off guard. ... Now, just thinking about my personal experience and how where I started was so far from the activity that will take place today."
That activity was called Let the Big Dawgs Read, an event for all of the second-grade children in the Clarke County School District. Before Mitchell took the microphone, there was a magic show by Mr. Magician, who talked often about the worlds that open up through reading, while also wowing the children with various tricks. At the end, he even made a rabbit magically appear. After that, Mitchell read the children's book he wrote while playing for Georgia, "The Magician's Hat."
Mitchell's story is now well known. He wasn't a very good reader when he got to Georgia, but he developed a real love for it in college, even joining a book club comprised of local women more than twice his age thanks to a chance encounter at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. The newfound love of reading sparked an interest in writing and encouraging children to read.
Soon, Mitchell was writing his own children's book, with the help of UGA Athletic Association learning specialist and writing center coordinator Lizz Bernstein.
Bernstein "sat with me every day and helped me until it became" a completed manuscript, he said, one that's now read by thousands of children all over the country. Through Read with Malcolm and Mitchell's Share the Magic Foundation, he travels the country promoting literacy and reading to children. He's done events in nearly all 50 states, which means he spends a lot of time on the road, away from his family in the Atlanta area.
"I was in a car the other day, headed to the airport from Virginia, and someone said, 'How does it feel to be living this normal life outside of football?' I said, 'I travel from state to state, reading books to kids and speaking about the importance of literacy. There's nothing normal about it," he said with a laugh.
Drafted in the fourth round in 2016, Mitchell caught 32 passes for 401 yards and four touchdowns for the Patriots as a rookie. In Super Bowl LI, he caught six passes for 70 yards in the infamous game in which the Patriots rallied from 28-3 down against the Atlanta Falcons. Knee injuries cut short his career, and he retired in 2019, having experienced the highest of highs in football.
Mitchell loved playing football, and still loves the game today, but he already had another mission in life by the time he retired. He's now written multiple books and has more on the way.
"They're two completely different worlds," Mitchell said of sports and writing and promoting literacy. And those two different worlds, and the way we celebrate one way more than we do the other, cause conflict within him.
"I have this deep desire and love for athletics, but then this clear understanding that that's not what reigns supreme, even though that's where we place it in society. So there's always a push and pull," he said.
Back in April 2023, Mitchell was the main speaker at a very different event on Georgia's campus. That afternoon at the UGA Chapel, Mitchell was the keynote speaker for the Phi Kappa Phi honor society's spring initiation. He also received the group's Love of Learning award. And if there was one thing that Mitchell tried to make clear to all of those second-graders on Friday, it's that new worlds can open up to you.
As the last line of "The Magician's Hat" reads: "What are your dreams?"
When Mitchell was younger and a star athlete growing up in Valdosta, Ga., he thought his value was largely limited to what he could do athletically. "And in many ways," he said back in 2023, "that mentality followed me for a very long time."
Now, and for quite a few years, going back to his time at Georgia when he discovered and cultivated a passion for reading, writing, and spreading the word on literacy, Mitchell knows he has so much more to offer than receptions and touchdowns.
"You get to learn so much about what this country has to offer," he said of speaking at events from coast to coast. "And I've been to I don't know how many schools and how many different states, I can't count them at this point, but I learned something new from every environment.
"There are lines that separate us as states, and there are very clear character traits and ambitions that unify us as a people, right? And that's what all this traveling has taught me."
It's also reminded him just how valuable and devoted and under-appreciated our teachers are.
"What they do is nothing short of a true blessing — a gift to the world. They don't get compensated at the highest level, yet they sacrifice so much for their classroom," he said, adding that in high school, he thought that teachers essentially were in school the same amount of time as the students, with nothing to do in the summers. Now he knows much better.
"We need a Super Bowl for educators, or a version of that. If we do that, then we can change the cultural perspective around that profession, which should change the way we interact and think about it. I don't know how to accomplish that, but I do think deeply about how do you place education on the same pedestal you do sports."
That may be a topic for another day, one worthy of a lot more thought and discussion. On Friday, about a decade after writing his first book as an undergrad who didn't get into reading until he was at Georgia, Mitchell saw "The Magician's Hat" come to life again in the hands of about 1,000 second-graders. It's a gift that continues to give.
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.