A University of Virginia graduate who runs a program that trains athletes to be HIV/AIDS educators for youths in the District has been named a Rhodes scholar for 2010. According to an announcement Sunday, Tyler S. Spencer, who grew up in Virginia and lives in the District, is one of three people from the District and Virginia to win one of the awards, among the most prestigious in the academic world.
Spencer, who grew up in Staunton and graduated from U.Va. last year, said he hopes to return to the District after Oxford and improve and expand the Grassroot Project, also known as Athletes United, which he founded and heads.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done” on HIV/AIDS, said Spencer, 23. College athletes, he said, closer in age to the city’s youths, have a special ability to reach them and can exert “tremendous power” in stopping the spread of the disease. He said his organization works with the D.C. public schools and the Boys and Girls Clubs. He has also spent summers managing a grassroots AIDS prevention program in South Africa. As with the 31 other American winners of the award, created in 1902, Spencer has a background of uncommon achievement. Among other things, he was a Morris Udall scholar and coach of the National Deaf Tennis Team.
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