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Malcolm Mitchell caught six passes in a Super Bowl. He says he's prouder of learning to read. When he arrived at the University of Georgia as one of the top recruits in the country, he could only read at about a junior high level. He'd grown up in Valdosta, Georgia, in what he calls an under-resourced community, where the idea that education could take you somewhere felt far-fetched. Sports was the only path anybody talked about. Then he got to campus and realized he'd been wrong about that. In 2013 he tore his ACL and missed almost the entire season. Stuck and looking for something to do, he started reading. His words: "I've always searched for ways to be creative. And when I got injured in 2013, reading picked up." He worked his way through children's books. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The Giving Tree. He was a Division I wide receiver in a Barnes and Noble in Athens, Georgia, teaching himself with picture books. And then he did something most 20 year old athletes would never do. He walked up to a stranger near the bestseller rack and asked for a recommendation. Her name was Kathy Rackley. She was picking up the next book for her book club. She had no idea he played football. They started talking, and she mentioned the club. Mitchell had been looking for one to join, so he asked if she'd put in a word for him. Her response, in her own telling: "I don't know if you want to join ours. We're all 40, 50, 60 year old women." His response: "I don't care. I just like to read." He thought they'd say no. Instead they took him in completely. His words about it: "I've been adopted into their family." A star SEC wide receiver spent his junior year of college in a suburban book club full of middle-aged women in Athens, Georgia, working through the same novels they were. And then he started going to elementary schools to read with kids. That became Read With Malcolm, which became the Share the Magic Foundation, dedicated to getting print books into the hands of children and building their reading skills. In 2015, while still in college, he wrote and self-published a children's book called The Magician's Hat, about a magician whose power comes from books. His reaction to that: "Being a published author never crossed my mind." The Patriots drafted him in the fourth round in 2016. He caught 32 passes as a rookie, then six more in Super Bowl LI, the game New England came back from 28-3 to beat Atlanta. That same year he was named Georgia's Children's Author of the Year, and Scholastic gave him a three book deal. Knee injuries ended his NFL career in 2019. He was 25. It didn't slow the other thing down at all. He's a full-time literacy advocate now, writing children's books and speaking to educators and kids across the country. And he has said it plainly, more than once. He is more proud of learning to read than he is of winning a Super Bowl. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap