Not always the cool kid - The story of Aaron Rodgers, the high school outlier

Aaron Rodgers is turning heads these days wherever he goes. Rodgers is a champion quarterback and a surefire future Hall-of-Famer, making him one of the most recognizable faces in America. He is multifaceted as well so that he can look good on TV, hosting Jeopardy!

However, it wasn't always this way for the reigning MVP. Aaron Rodgers has come out and said how there was a time when he did not fit into conventional groups when he was in high school.

Aaron Rodgers was an outlier in high school

Aaron Rodgers studied at Pleasant Valley High School in California. He was the starting quarterback there in his junior and senior years.

However, he has come out and said that just because he was in that role did not mean he was the cool guy who everyone else wanted to hang out with. On the contrary, he admitted himself to being a bit of a nerd. He added, though, that he was not so intellectually inclined to be fully a part of the latter group either. So he kind of stayed in the middle, not fitting into either description, and remained an outlier through school. His exact words were,

"I was caught between two cliques in high school. I was not cool enough to be in the cool crew, even though I was the starting quarterback. And not quite nerdy enough to totally nerd out with the nerd group. I was kind of right in the middle."

How Aaron Rodgers' frank admission helps the discourse?

There is almost a caricatural belief in modern society that everything must fit neatly into groups. In the case of high school and college, it's the jocks and the nerds. Everything from movies to serials to books, this stereotype has been reinforced to the point where many teenagers and young adults struggle to identify themselves as part of any group and venture to become lonesome. Social media further exacerbates that.

Aaron Rodgers' admission might help those young people who look up to him to shed labels and be who they really are. As Aaron Rodgers so poignantly observed,

"In high school, I think we all worry too much about things that are not that important. The idea of being popular, being in the popular crew. You look back and none of that matters at this point."

We ourselves could not have said it any better.