Jerry Podair will be presented with the Bob Wurdinger Athletic Service Award during the Lawrence University basketball doubleheader on Saturday at Alexander Gymnasium.
Podair, the seventh winner of the Wurdinger Award, has been a great friend to Department of Athletics and its student-athletes during his time as a professor at Lawrence.
Podair has served on the Committee on Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics and continually works as an academic advisor to student-athletes. He also works closely with the Director of Athletics as a liaison with the faculty and has served as a guest coach for men’s and women’s basketball, hockey and volleyball.
A professor of history and Robert S. French Professor of American Studies, Podair is a specialist in 20th-century United States history, and his research interests include urban history and ethnic and racial relations. His current book projects are a study of the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, a biography of baseball mogul Walter O’Malley, and a primary-source anthology in United States history after 1877 titled The American Conversation, written in collaboration with Professor James H. Merrell ’75, of Vassar College.
The award was established to honor Wurdinger, a Kaukauna native, and long-time Lawrence assistant football coach. Wurdinger, who has been a tireless advocate for Lawrence athletics for more than four decades, received the first award in 2006.
Other winners of the Wurdinger Award are: Chuck and Cinny Reff, Ken and Carole Ebert, Joe, Clyde and Jeanne Kieffer, Don Strutz and Dick Knapinski.