At the tender age of seven-years-old, Adrian Peterson watched his older brother die at the hands of a drunk driver. This particular incident led Peterson into his obsession with sports guiding him to become a five-star recruit that would commit to playing his collegiate ball with the University of Oklahoma Sooners. During his freshman year in 2004, Peterson set an NCAA record for rushing yards by a true freshman with a total of 1,925 yards. Throughout his three-season college career, Peterson would go on to finish third in all-time Sooner rushing yards with 4,041.
His stellar performance in college led him to be the 7th overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings where he had an instant impact setting an NFL record for most rushing yards in a single game with 296 yards. His most prominent years, Peterson spent in Minnesota earning a total salary of $94.2 million dollars before being suspended for accusations of negligent injury to a child in 2014. Since then, Peterson has become a journeyman around the league playing for teams like the New Orleans Saints, the Arizona Cardinals, and now the Washington Redskins. While he's signed multi-million dollar deals with two out of the three of those franchises and accumulated over $101 million in his NFL career, Peterson claims that he is broke.
Most of your favorite celebrities either studied acting in college or went straight from high school into a life of the arts. But, hey, not all of them. Some celebrities actually have advanced college degrees.
Turns out Mayim Bialik is just as much of a genius as the one she plays on The Big Bang Theory. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on obsessive compulsive disorder among people with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare condition in which the hypothalamus malfunctions.
Little known fact: Natalie Portman skipped the premiere of Star Wars: Phantom Menace because she was studying for her high school exams. She had two papers published in scientific journals while she was still in high school, and graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Psychology.
Before he was looking for answers on X-Files, David Duchovny was just trying to find the answers for English finals at Princeton University90. David graduated from Princeton in 1982 with a B.A in English. He continued to feed his love of literature by receiving a master’s degree in English Literature at Yale University. David was an excellent writer and poet. His work consistently received praise by his fellow classmates and teachers at Yale. His writing was even nominated for a college prize by the Academy of American Poets.
Sigourney Weaver graduated from Stanford University in 1971 with a bachelor’s in Literature. It was while studying at Stanford that Sigourney realized her true passion in life was to become an actress. Shortly after graduation, she attended Yale for their well-known drama program. She would go on to receive a master’s in Acting from Yale University and become friends with fellow famous actress Meryl Streep.
Meryl Streep is considered one of the most successful actresses of all time. She is also one of the most highly educated. Before collecting an array of Oscars, Meryl collected diplomas. She graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in 1971. Meryl has a habit of being unsatisfied with impressive accomplishments as her acting career has shown, so she attended Yale University and earned a master’s degree in Acting.