Gainesville, Fla. — It was only a little over a month ago that Al Horford was swapping jagged elbows with Kevin Garnett, exchanging bons mots with Paul Pierce and finishing a disputed second for the NBA rookie of the year award.

Tuesday, the Hawks' most promising player sat in a University of Florida auditorium, soaking in the social significance of the Teletubbies.

AP (ENLARGE)

Al Horford stays fit by working out with a Gators strength and conditioning coach at his former team's practice facility.

AP (ENLARGE)

Hawks forward Al Horford (top center) listens to a lecture during one of his two summer classes at the University of Florida.

AP (ENLARGE)

Using an umbrella loaned to him by a university housekeeper, Al Horford walks to class in the rain Tuesday after missing his bus.

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It was about as far away from his last assignment — the Boston Celtics — as he could stray. (Although, if you squint hard enough, Tinky Winky does look a little like Sam Cassell.)

Welcome to Television and American Society, one of two classes Horford is taking this summer while making a slow trek toward a degree in telecommunications.

Horford could be lounging on a beach in his native Dominican Republic. He could be picking up easy money on the show-up-and-look-tall appearance circuit. Or taking advantage of a hundred other luxuries open to an emerging star.

Instead, he's back at the university where he won consecutive national titles, doing the humble student thing, putting on his backpack one arm at a time just like the rest of them.

Players of his pedigree don't leave college early only to rush back to class their first offseason, do they? With millions of dollars secured, with a long basketball future seemingly ahead, who needs a degree, right?

"Doesn't surprise me that he's here," Florida coach Billy Donovan said. "He's gifted and grounded, about as good a kid as I've been around. He's the type of kid that this is going to be important to him."

"He's not messing around. He's a good student and a real part of the class," said Annie Sugar, who's teaching the Television and American Society course. Horford said he carried a 3.3 GPA into the summer session.

When the Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in the first round of the playoffs, it scrambled Horford's academic plans. He'd intended to pick up his education after leaving Florida following his junior year. Now he'd have all of five days to decompress from a long season and register for classes. And from there jump straight into the lecture hall.

"I did have some second thoughts [about registering]," Horford said. "But I needed to get away from Atlanta, and I really wanted to start out right. I felt if I had waited a few years to start summer school, I might not be as willing to do it as I am now."

So, this summer, it's Fundamentals of Production four days a week and the TV/Society class three days. In between classes, he works out with Gators strength and conditioning coach Matt Herring and gets in the occasional pick-up game at the Florida practice facility.

At this pace — and factoring in other delays should the Hawks advance in the postseason anytime soon — it will take Horford at least two years, likely longer, to complete his degree. He says he is dead set on doing it, both for himself and to fulfill a promise he made to his grandfather, Jose Reynoso, when he left Florida early for the NBA.

Going to class with the third pick in the 2007 NBA draft, after a season in which he averaged 10.1 points and 9.7 rebounds a game, is a little different experience than tagging along with the usual college kid. For one thing, he's 6-10, and when it's stormy outside like it is this day, most students aren't such a handy lightning rod.

Horford pulls his backpack from a little nicer car than average underclassmen drive — a new Lexus — but he rides the same campus bus as everyone else. Missing it this day, he decided to make the 10-minute walk from the basketball practice facility to the journalism building.

Summer session, and the living is low key. Campus slows down to a waltz tempo, and Horford seemed to know almost all of the people he passed on the way, like a small-town sheriff. A wave here, a nod there, he's still comfortable in the college setting.

As the rain began to pick up, a university housekeeper who used to clean his room drove by, stopped, and handed Horford her umbrella through a car window.

"Being at the pro level was a new experience for me and I loved it," Horford said. "You do miss some of the college stuff, but I'm the type of person who likes to live in the moment. During the season I was all about the NBA. Now I'm back in school and I'm loving it, taking advantage of being back in the college atmosphere."

Those who Horford doesn't know want to know him. Another car stops at the sight of a NBA player walking on campus, and out fall three young dudes. Hey, man, can we get a picture with you? Horford stops, poses and everyone laughs at the transaction. Happens all the time, he said.

Going back to college days doesn't always work out so well.

Some can handle the big-fish, small-pond scene. Horford and former teammate Taurean Green (Denver Nuggets) are both taking classes, both staying with a school friend of Horford's. They've managed to do this quietly.

Some can't. Former Gator frontcourt buddy Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls) was arrested in Gainesville last month on charges of possession of a small amount of marijuana and violating an open container law.

It does seem only natural, though, that the Hawk who most plays with a collegiate kind of energy and intensity would be comfortable back at school. After winning a national title in 2005-06, the Florida team put off the pros and returned intact to go for another one. That was frog hair rare in the one-and-done world of college basketball.

"We built relationships here for the rest of our lives," Horford said.

From his NBA father, Tito, Horford gained his size and athleticism. From his mother's side came the emphasis on education and the interest in media. Back in the Dominican Republic, Arelis Reynoso was a sports broadcaster, with her own talk show. His parents divorced when Horford was 3. His mother is retired now, living near Horford in Smyrna.

To anyone with a working TV, it's obvious that no degree is required for jocks to make the jump from one side of the camera to the other. Plus, only 22, Horford is barely into his first career, let alone clear on what to do with his second.

Still, here he sat on a rainy Florida day — two more weeks to go before finals — in a sparsely populated auditorium fulfilling a promise to himself and his family.

"I don't know specifically what I want to do yet [with a degree], but I think having something like this will open a lot of doors for me," he said.

The day's lecture had departed the topic of the effect of television on children, leaving the Teletubbies behind and moving to some of the defining moments in television history.

On the big screen at the front of the class, Neil Armstrong was making mankind's first footprint on the moon, 17 years before Horford was born.

But, pssst, look at this, motioned a student sitting near Horford. On his laptop he had summoned more recent images. It was Horford and Pierce jawing and gesturing in Game 3 of the Hawks-Celtics series. Hardly historic, but a reminder of where Horford was only a few weeks ago.

He smiled and turned back to Tranquility Base.

One small step for the Hawks, one giant leap for academia.

SYLLABUS

Here are Al Horford's classroom match-ups this summer:

Fundamentals

of Production

• Credit hours: 3

• Current grade: A

• Description: Basic principles and operations of radio and television equipment.

• Strengths: At 6-10, Horford always will get his shot off here. Unblockable, he can hoist the camera above any media circus.

• Weaknesses: Accustomed to speaking into the microphone, may have difficulty learning to point it away from himself.

• Outcome: Will be able to explain to teammates why it requires a battalion of technicians to get a 5-second sound bite.

Television and American Society

• Credit Hours: 3

• Current grade: B

• Description: Enables the student to use television productively and to understand its structure and effects. Research findings concerning audience behavior and criteria for evaluating television programs will be discussed.

• Strengths: Horford is on television regularly and can contribute valuable first-person experience to any discussion of the societal impact of Bob Rathbun.

• Weaknesses: Like anyone under the age of 30, completely missed the best years of television.

• Outcome: Perhaps finally will be able to understand the appeal of "Deal or No Deal."

— Steve Hummer