By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOL SPRINGS, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech linebacker Josh Poplar stood at the podium and told his story Wednesday night.
With everything he has gone through, including his stroke before the start of the 2017 season, then working his way back to playing one more season of football, the Knoxville native was the definition of courage.
So it was no surprise to see Poplar earn the 2019 Bonnie Sloan Courage Award at Wednesday's Middle Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation banquet at the Cool Springs Marriott.
The Bonnie Sloan Courage Award is named after the former Litton High School and Austin Peay football player. An All-Ohio Valley Conference defensive tackle in 1971 and 1972, he became the first deaf player to be drafted into the National Football League by the St. Louis Cardinals. The award is presented to a collegiate or professional athlete, coach or staff member who has had to overcome great odds and continues to fight.
Poplar certainly did that. After missing the 2017 campaign, he worked his way back through spring practice and made an impact in his first game back, intercepting a pass for a touchdown in the Golden Eagles' season opener at Chattanooga. He finished the 2018 season with 101 tackles, two tackles for loss and two fumble recoveries.
This season, Poplar was also named an honorable mention for the Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year, a third-team selection to the Phil Steele All-OVC team and also named to both the Google Cloud Academic All-District Team presented by CoSIDA and the FCS ADA Academic All-Star Team. He was also named a finalist for the 18th annual FCS ADA $5,000 Postgraduate Scholarship, which will be awarded in June. He was also the OVC's representative for the STATS FCS Doris Robinson Award.
Senior kicker Nick Madonia was also recognized by the Middle Tennessee chapter with the Collegiate Scholar-Athlete Award. Madonia finished with a 3.01 grade point average and put together a fantastic season for the Golden Eagles, leading the team with 66 points.
Madonia kicked a school-record 65 consecutive extra points as he went 21-for-22 on point-after tries, while also hitting 15 of his 22 field goal attempts on the season, including a season-long 54-yarder at Utah State.
He had three of the Football Championship Subdivision's 27 field goals longer than 50 yards and one of two FCS kickers with multiple 50-plus-yard field goals. His 54-yarder was the third longest kick in the FCS and 10th longest in all of Division I football.
Madonia was also named the winner of the 2018 Robert Hill Johnson Award, the Tech football team's highest honor.
Photos by Mike Strasinger, SportsNashville.net
