Yale’s Awodiran dedicated to change, dedicates honor to family

Yale senior linebacker Micah Awodiran earned a pretty impressive honor from the university over the summer, and his first thought was family.

The school presents the David Everett Chantler Award, one of only a handful the Council of the Heads of College give out, to “that graduating member of the Senior Class who has bestexemplified qualities of courage, strength of character and high moral purpose.”

Awodiran, in the football team’s announcement, dedicated it to his mother and sister.

“The things that they were speaking of, ‘strength of character, high moral purpose,’ those are all things that were instilled in me before I came to Yale,” Awodiran said this week at the Bulldogs’ media availability.

“Coach (Tony) Reno and the staff have given me the opportunity to enact that in the best ways possible here on campus.”

Awodiran, from Chicago, worked with Yale Bulldogs for Change on the Bulldog Ballot Challenge, which worked to get eligible athletes and members of the athletic department registered to vote last fall.

And that wasn’t necessarily an easy thing to get done amid a pandemic.

“We didn’t necessarily have, you know, student-tostudent contact,” Awodiran said. “You couldn’t really be in the traditional organizing situations.

“We had to get really creative with the ways that we could impact change, and for us to have something as big as the Bulldog Ballot

Challenge to where we’re getting everyone across the athletic department registered to vote, I think that that was something that we could do tangibly while not necessarily being able to like reach out and touch that impact.”

Awodiran has been part of Yale Bulldogs for Change, which “aims to enhance the varsity student-athlete experience for people of color.” The Chantler Award announcement also mentions his work with the school’s African American Cultural Center.

“We’re really proud of Micah and what he’s accomplished on the field and and you know, even more importantly off the field, being a leader in in such an important area with the YBC,” Reno said.

“It’s a continuum, you know. It’s going to continue,” the coach added. “Micah’s really set a great example of how to use a platform of being a student-athlete at an extraordinary school like Yale and and being able to use it in a positive way.”

The team visits Lehigh on Saturday (noon, ESPN+) for the first of three straight road games after splitting its first two at home. Awodiran was in on five tackles and had a big third-down pass breakup in last weekend’s 23-17 win over Cornell.

Lehigh is 0-4, and the Mountain Hawks have yet to score a touchdown.

“For us it’s truly being able to play to our standards. We haven’t done that yet,” Reno said. “And we’ve improved in the two games immensely. But we’ve got to continue to grow as a team if we want to chase what we’re trying to chase, and that’s to be an elite team.”