Cool story in Friday’s NY Times on a local Arena Football wide receiver who’s also studying to be a doctor. By day, Chris Anthony hauls in touchdown passes and gets slammed into the boards for the New York Dragons. By evening, he’s studying sickle cells under the microscope at Hunter College.

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Anthony uses his bicycle, the Long Island Railroad and the subway to bridge his two passions.

Writes Alan Schwarz:

“On Tuesday, wearing khakis and a black riding helmet strapped beneath his chin, Anthony rode his 24-speed cyclocross bike from his Brooklyn apartment to the Long Island Rail Road, rode that for 45 minutes, and then hopped on his bike for another 15 minutes to the Nassau Coliseum for practice. First came a film session, where he took notes on Tampa Bay’s “zone-to-zoom zag” and “two-way go” defenses, and then a full-pad run-through.

At 2 p.m., Anthony biked past the Escalades and assorted S.U.V.’s in the players’ parking lot and back to the L.I.R.R. to drop off his wheels in Brooklyn. He grabbed a sandwich, headed to Hunter on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and by 5:45 was sitting anonymously in a bio lecture, scribbling notes on apoptotic cells and peptide fragments.

I have two thoughts on Mr. Anthony. One, it’s great that this guy gets from Brooklyn to Long Island to Manhattan and back to Brooklyn with just his bike, the subway and a Long Island Railroad ticket.

Two, get a car, dude. Really. You’ll pay it off in no time once you’re a doctor. Youre carbon footprint is negligible. You get plenty of exercise playing pro football, not to mention “dissecting a fetal pig” and “scribbling notes on apoptotic cells and peptide fragments.”

[photo: New York Dragons]