Bears WR Tyler Scott gets his degree

The day Tyler Scott was drafted by the Bears last year, his wife, Mileena, graduated from the University of Cincinnati.

“It was a cool day,” he said.

But while getting drafted by the NFL is pretty exciting, it was Tyler who was feeling left out. After three years at Cincinnati, he was still 30-plus credits short of a degree.

That empty feeling was part of the impetus for Scott to get a diploma of his own, and he did it. Spending his offseason downtime taking online classes, the second-year wide receiver earned his degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and participated in the graduation ceremony Friday at Fifth Third Arena on the Cincinnati campus.

“[It was] super important [to graduate],” Scott said. “Football has blessed me — financially, just to get to know different people. But this is more of a thing I did for my future family. It sets a standard in the household, like, ‘I was able to play in the NFL, but also get my degree. Same with mom. She was able to get her degree and do what she wants to do.’ It sets a standard in the household.”

Scott, a fourth-round draft pick, said he was following the lead of former Cincinnati teammate Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, the Jets’ All-Pro cornerback who participated in Cincinnati’s commencement ceremony the day after his team played in the Hall of Fame Game last year. With the Bears’ blessing, Scott made that same trek after the Bears beat the Texans 21-17 in the rain-shortened Hall of Fame Game on Thursday night in Canton.

“I was like, ‘If the opportunity comes, I would love to walk the stage,” Scott said, “because I didn’t get to walk the stage when I was in high school, which kind of hurt because it was during COVID. I never got that experience, to be able to share [that experience] with my people I grew up with. I just wanted to be able to walk the stage — not for myself but for my parents, so they can experience that.”

Because he entered college during COVID-19 and left early for the NFL, Scott ended up doing all his classwork on line. “I actually have never seen a college professor [in person], nor have I ever been in a college classroom,” he said. “So when I picked it back up [in the offseason], it wasn’t a big transition.”