BALTIMORE — Just outside of Berberian Gymnasium at West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School hangs a photo of Daniel Wodicka.
The 2010 graduate is wearing the No. 1 jersey, recognizing his 2009 Indiana Mr. Football award.
When giving tours to prospective students and their parents, associate principal Dan Walbaum always makes sure to stop at Wodicka’s photo.
“Mr. Football on the wall there, but he was a three-sport athlete and he played the cello in the orchestra,” Walbaum tells them. “How many schools have something like that happen?”
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Walbaum can now tell those prospective students Wodicka later became the head football coach at one of the top academic institutions in the United States.
After being both a model student and star athlete at West Lafayette, Wodicka became an All-American receiver at Johns Hopkins.
Last month, Wodicka was named head coach of his alma mater.
His West Lafayette roots run deep, even at the Division III program in Baltimore, Maryland, where Wodicka still relies on words of wisdom he received as a prep standout 15 years earlier.
Former Indiana Mr. Football Daniel Wodicka, a West Lafayette graduate, takes over as head coach at Johns Hopkins University.
“Our players here don’t even realize, but I am still rattling off quotes that (former West Lafayette basketball coach) David Wood gave me when I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old,” Wodicka said.
Sometimes, Wodicka will rely on the words of Walbaum, his high school baseball coach for two seasons, and Joel Strode, Wodicka’s baseball coach as a junior and senior.
It’ll be a message that stayed with him courtesy of hall of fame coach Marshall Overley, who took the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/former-mr-football-west-lafayette-130952703.html
Author : Journal & Courier
Publish date : 2024-03-08 13:09:52
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