The Detroit Lions top draft pick, Laken Tomlinson, made huge sacrifices to get a good education. They're about to pay off.

The Lions took some heat from their fans (including me) for dropping five spots in the draft, giving up chances to get some quality athletes, but when I started reading about Tomlinson, I see why they drafted him.

The 6-foot-3 323 pound Duke graduate (and he DID graduate, and Duke is not a safety school) grew up in impoverished Jamaica. His Mom emigrated to America when he was 11, and settled in on the North Side of Chicago.

He was accepted into the magnet school Lane Tech, which he saw as a tremendous opportunity to improve his education, even though it meant a 90 minute trek on mass transit one way to get to school every morning.

Such sacrifices made an impact on Lions coach Jim Caldwell.

"It doesn't take you very long to see that he's a very bright young man," coach Jim Caldwell told the press after the pick was made.

"It doesn't take you very long to see that he also has grit, meaning that he had to come through a number of things to get where he is today. His willingness and dedication to go from where he lived in Chicago all the way to Lane Tech is quite admirable...it just shows you something pretty unique about the guy."

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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
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Being from the Midwest, Tomlinson turned down offers from Big Ten powers Michigan State and Wisconsin to attend the more academically challenging Duke, where he double majored in anthropology and psychology, and he was named to the All-Academic ACC team four times during his stay in Durham, NC.

But can he play football? Well, ESPN draft guru called "the best guard on the board" and NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said, "He doesn't have great feet, he's not athletic as the zone-scheme teams, but he's a people mover."

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Getty Images
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