Athletics Award Recipients

M CLUB HY POPUCH MEMORIAL SERVICE aWARD

Thomas H. Ford, Jr.
Racine, Wis..

Tom retired after 25 years on the Marquette intercollegiate athletics staff where he developed and oversaw the Academic Support Program, which started as a one-person office serving 160 student-athletes. By the time he retired, he was working with a staff of five and 307 student-athletes. During his time at Marquette, nearly 3,000 student-athletes, managers, trainers and tutors interacted with the program.

The program operated the Academic Support Center and offered programs designed to meet the academic needs of student-athletes, including an extensive freshman orientation program, academic advising, tutoring, writing assistance, organized study sessions, a computer lab, and the design and implementation of individual study plans. Tom presented the Marquette freshman orientation model and held workshops on how to design and implement individual study plans at professional development conferences for others in the field. Variations of the Marquette model exist today in many other institutions.

Prior to coming to Marquette, Tom served as an adviser and mentor at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. He was also an assistant director for the Educational Opportunity Program at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Previous work experiences included working in Racine, Wis., at the Urban League, Spanish Center and Wisconsin Educational Opportunity Program.

Tom graduated from UW–Parkside with a bachelor’s degree in English and received his master’s degree in education in guidance and counseling from Carthage College.

Tom has been married to his wife, Susan, for 31 years and has two children, Jesse, Arts ’09, and Casey, Ed ’12.