Damaschke featured as NFF Scholar-Athlete, Campbell Trophy finalist
Austin Damaschke was featured in on article written by Scott Bedgood after he was named a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete and a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy.
November 17, 2014
WILLIAM V. CAMPBELL TROPHY FINALIST: Concordia's Damaschke Deals With PA School Interview, Knee Injury, And Homecoming Game In The Same Day
Saturdays in the fall always come with a certain set of nerves for Concordia University Wisconsin Quarterback Austin Damaschke, but on this particular Saturday it wasn't the knee injury he was fighting through, or the Homecoming and Senior Day game he was most worried about.
Damaschke, a finalist for the 2014 William V. Campbell Trophy, had something even bigger on his plate before the game: An interview for admission into Physician's Assistant school at CUW.
"The stress that was on me all day was pretty crazy," Damaschke says. "Luckily I had my interview in the first group so I did that around 8:30. Next thing I knew I was done with my interview and I was already thinking about the game coming up in a few hours."
He finished the interview around 11 and was ready for the game that started at 1 p.m. For Damaschke, who maintains a 3.67 GPA in Biomedical Sciences while breaking almost every career passing record in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference, managing his time between class and football has become an art form he's perfected over the last four years.
"It's something I've gotten great at. Sitting down and setting out a schedule and telling myself, 'I've got to do this for a certain amount of hours and then this for a certain amount of hours,'" says Damaschke. "And then I wake up the next day and do it all over again."
Many of Damaschke's passes over the last four years have gone to his roommate and go-to wide receiver, Garrett Wenzelburger. The 6'6" receiver has compiled numerous NACC receiving records through his partnership with Damaschke.
"I kid you not, he's in the library three or four nights of the week until almost midnight, he gets three or four lifts in during game weeks, and watches film," Wenzelburger says. "I don't know how he does it. I feel overwhelmed and I'm not in nearly as hard a major as he is and he's got way better grades than me."
Damaschke, from Bristol, Wis, credits football with teaching him to take advantage of every opportunity and to work hard to achieve his goals.
"In football you know that you can't pass up an opportunity," Damaschke says. "In the classroom you have to know that you're never going to get an opportunity to retake a test or exam so you give it 100% every time. "
His teammate Wenzelburger insists that Damaschke's hard work and preparation extend into every facet of his life.
"You can take my word for it that he's a hard worker," Wenzelburger says. "He's a great athlete, but he works just as hard if not harder than anyone on the team. As far as the student part goes, he never procrastinates on anything. With all of the applications for PA school he was the first one to get them in. That tells you how much that part of his life means to him. He likes to have fun with us, but he never ever lets anything get in the way of being a student first."
Football comes with a ready-made set of mentors and people to potentially look up to, as each position has a coach, along with coordinators, and a head coach. But teammates can also be mentors, as evidenced by Damaschke recalling a man he looked up to and learned from as a young college player.
"The starting quarterback when I was a freshman was a junior [Pat Czerwiec] and he ended up getting hurt the third game of the season. I ended up taking the starting job and he was such a team player about it," Damaschke recalls. "He was the reason that I got through freshman year the way I did and I couldn't thank him enough for it."
It all goes back to a concept that Coach Greg Etter instills in his players, P.R.I.D.E, which stands for Personal Responsibility In Daily Effort.
"What we are doing here is bigger than winning football games and championships, we are preparing guys for life outside Concordia. We want them to learn those values as a member of our football team," Etter says. "When they go for that job interview, when they go to apply to PA school, when they go for that promotion 20 years down the road, we hope that P.R.I.D.E concept means something to them and carries them through into a successful career."
Damaschke, Etter says, exemplifies all of the concepts that are stressed to the team through the P.R.I.D.E concept.
"We want these young men doing what Austin Damaschke does every day of his life: be the best student, the best football player, the best son, the best boyfriend, the best teammate that you can be," Etter says.
Not everyone can naturally be the best football player on the field or the smartest student in the classroom, but Wenzelburger insists that Damaschke won't be successful because of his natural intelligence or talents.
"He's a smart kid, but I've met kids who are a lot smarter than Austin," Wenzelburger says. "But he's going to be a lot more successful than any of those kids because he's got what it takes."
