COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Instead of walking away from his sport when injuries forced him to quit playing, Luke Woodason has remained with the Tennessee Tech football program in the role of student assistant, helping the coaching staff in whatever ways he can during the 2015 season.
His positive presence on the field, coupled with the leadership he has shown in five years on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, have earned him selection as the Unsung Leader Award for the month of October, presented by the Athletics Dept.
The son of Keith and Caroline Woodason, he hails from Dalton, Ga., and will graduate in May with a degree in elementary education. He is spending his final two semesters in a student teaching position.
An extremely devoted and competitive football player, Woodason has faced hardships throughout his Tech career, but he always bounced back to battle with grit and determination to return to action. Heading into the 2015 season, he was hoping to play a role in the Golden Eagle secondary after returning from the latest injury that wiped out his 2014 season. He thought his recovery was complete, but faced the harsh reality that he simply couldn’t perform up to the level needed to be effective.
Instead of strapping on the pads for fall camp, he made the difficult decision to step aside as a player and assist the team in other ways, serving as a student assistant coach and working with the defensive secondary.
After seeing action in nine games as a true freshman in Tech’s championship year of 2011, he played in only one game in 2012 before being injured and was granted medical redshirt for the season. Even though he was unable to participate in practices, he continued to study films and learn his position. He returned to the field for the 2013 season, and played in five games but was seriously injured in the game at Eastern Illinois, ending that year.
For the 2014 campaign, fully recovered and anxious to resume his career, another injury sidelined him.
Throughout the injuries, Woodason has remained active in SAAC, working on a variety of community and campus projects, and eventually being elected president.
“Luke was an incredibly active president for SAAC, even through the adversity of his injuries,”
said Mandy Thatcher, Coordinator of Athletic Compliance, who nominated Woodason for the award and serves as the staff liaison for SAAC. “He has been a unifying presence with all of our teams the past several years, and still remains active this year as a past president.
Woodason has done volunteer work and community services with local churches and throughout Cookeville. He also helped to coordinate the SAAC “Hoops for Heroes” fundraiser and worked to implement a blog by Tech’s student-athletes.
“Even though Luke has been continuously injured, he has shown exemplary leadership as the SAAC president and past president. He has been medically retired for the rest of his career, but he works with football as a student coach to help his teammates. Some players might have walked away from the game, but he just wants to do whatever he can to help.”
The Unsung Leader Award was created in 2014-15 in order to recognize leadership by Tech’s student-athletes. An award presented each month throughout the academic year.
“This award recognizes leadership, which many times isn’t reflected in headlines or other ways,” said Director of Athletics Mark Wilson. “Sometimes it’s behind-the-scenes leadership that makes everybody better.
“These young men and women are leaders, pure-and-simple, not doing the right thing for recognition but to make themselves, their teammates, and their teams better,” Wilson said.
One student-athlete each month, nominated by members of the athletics staff, is selected and recognized for exemplifying outstanding leadership qualities. The leadership can be shown on the field, in the weight room, at practice, in the classroom, in study hall, on campus, in the community, for a student club or organization.
This award honors a varsity student-athlete who has made a positive impact on their team and the Tennessee Tech community as a whole, through his or her dedication to demonstrating leadership traits, such as:
* Keep Learning, Growing, and Improving
* Follow Through with Excellence
* Accomplish More than Expected
* Inspire and Motivate Others
The first Unsung Leader Award for 2015-16 went to soccer player McKenzie McCloud for September. Unsung Leader Award winners in the initial season in 2014-15 were Ellen Conti (volleyball in September), Austin Tallant (football in October), Geoffrey Sambu (cross country in November), Courtney Smith (volleyball in December), Jordan Hopkins (baseball in January), and Olivia Bennett (softball in February), Haley Davidson (golf in March), and Mariah Dean (basketball in April).
