The Rock is on a Roll

The star of the current Disney sports movie The Game Plan, Dwayne Douglas “The Rock” Johnson is on a roll. All those days in the WWE and now movie stardom and “The Rock” is giving back to his alma mater, The University of Miami.

Johnson and his ex-wife Dany Garcia have remained close to their alma mater, giving a $2 million donation in 2006 to build a living room at the university’s alumni center for visiting alumni. Additionally, Dany is a member of the University of Miami’s Board of Trustees.

Yesterday(October 2, 2007), Johnson and his ex-wife donated $1M US to the University of Miami to support the university’s athletics department. The funds were given to the football facilities renovation fund and were noted as the largest donation ever given to the university’s athletics department by former students. The Miami Hurricanes’ football locker room will be renamed in Dwayne Johnson’s honor.

How did “The Rock” end up at Miami? Johnson received collegiate football scholarship offers from several universities and settled on the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, one of the top football programs in the nation. While the University of Miami football program did not openly recruit Johnson, he entered try-outs as a “walk on” for the program and made the team, playing defensive tackle. In 1991, he was part of the Miami Hurricanes’ National Championship team. After an injury kept him sidelined, Johnson was replaced by Warren Sapp, who went on to be drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and is now with the Oakland Raiders. Baltimore Ravens Linebacker and former NFL Defensive Player of the Year Ray Lewis also played with Johnson on the Miami Hurricanes.
*****portions of this piece came from www.wikipedia.com

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