Founded in 1956, the University of South Florida had never produced a Rhodes Scholar finalist throughout its history - until Alexander Mercier came along.
Mercier’s first passions were art and music, and at age 5 he began begging his parents to take art classes. Shortly thereafter, his mother contracted a mysterious illness that was misdiagnosed due to what Mercier calls poor epidemiology research. After three years, his mother's doctors concluded that she had Lyme Disease, a diagnosis likely dismissed due to its rarity in Mercier's home state of California.
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