May 9, 2007

USC fullback Jody Adewale has been named a recipient of a 2007 Wilma Rudolph Student Athlete Achievement Award from the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics.

The N4A's Wilma Rudolph Award honors student athletes who have overcome great personal, academic, and/or emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics.

Adewale, who started 3 games for USC's Rose Bowl championship team in 2006, supported his poverty-stricken and ill family during his 4-year Trojan career. Among other things, he would give them his scholarship stipend check to help pay their rent, his leftover food from training table to help feed them and his used athletic apparel to help clothe them. He would make a near-daily trip to visit them in East Los Angeles, helping to clean the house, do their laundry and drive them to work or appointments.

Adewale--a psychology major at USC--and several other recipients will be honored on June 10 in Phoenix, Ariz., at the N4A's annual convention.

USC fullback Lee Webb won a Wilma Rudolph Award in 2005.