APRIL 17, 2023— UTSA Roadrunners Safety Rashad Wisdom has loved football since he began playing at the age of six. As a high school student, he was offered 13 college scholarships for his athletic excellence from several of the nation’s top schools, including Columbia University, Yale, Cornell, Boston College and Tulane University.
Ultimately, he accepted a full-ride UTSA Athletics Scholarship provided by the Roadrunner Athletics Fund. Wisdom was drawn to the home of the Roadrunners for both its NCAA Division I athletics department and top ranking information systems and cybersecurity program in the UTSA Carlos Alvarez College of Business.
“I’ve been interested in cybersecurity since I was just a young kid playing video games, and now it’s incredible that I can earn my degree and also play on a Division I football team in such a great city,” said Wisdom.
Currently a safety for Roadrunners Football, Wisdom describes football as a game of chess, where the calls he makes for his team have to be strategic and all of the players must think quicklyon their feet. With the mental and physical energy expended in football, along with his classes, life as a student-athlete is often grueling.
“Just the stress of everyday life can be overwhelming; even just trying to afford a living and buying food. And then you add the physical and mental exhaustion of football and passing our classes and it piles up,” he said.
Wisdom dedicates his time on campus to practice and training, his studies and the extracurricular activities Athletics has to offer. He is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). As a member of SAAC, Wisdom helps provide a voice for student-athletes on campus and brings together students from all UTSA sports to support one another at their events and games. This helps players build connections with each other and creating a sense of unity among student-athletes.
With his schedule filled to the brim, Wisdom is grateful for the financial support that helps make his university involvement possible.
“My scholarship has been a blessing, because it is letting me use my time to focus on everything at UTSA—my school work, football and helping athletes support one another.,” he said. “ I don’t have to worry about trying to fit a job into my schedule, and that taking away from my education.”
After graduating in summer 2023, Wisdom hopes to see his dream of playing in the NFL through. Once he has retired from football, he plans to use his cybersecurity skills to become a penetration tester for a large company where he can perform simulated cyber-attacks on their systems to help locate potential security issues.
“I hope the donors who support the Roadrunner Athletic Fund understand how big of a difference they are making for us. I don’t know if they truly do,” Wisdom said. “So many athletes wouldn’t be here without them.”
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