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Past Bud Nangle Award Recipients
Tom Satkowiak – University of Tennessee, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications
2019 Bud Nangle Award recipient
by Maurice Williams, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Assistant Commissioner for Media Relations
People might not know the name
Tom Satkowiak outside of the Southeastern Conference, and that is just fine with him, because his role calls for him to remain behind the scenes, provide support and avoid the spotlight.
Satkowiak is the Assistant Athletic Director for Communications at the University of Tennessee, and this is his 16th year on the communications staff. The Bay City, Michigan, native is now in the spotlight and will be recognized by CoSIDA with the 2019 Bud Nangle Award, which is presented to an individual outside of CoSIDA or a member who shows ethics, integrity and bravery under unusual or stressful situations.
To say Oct. 17, 2018, was a big day for Tom would be an understatement.
He was already planning on a busy day, which would have him traveling to SEC Basketball Media Day in Birmingham, Ala. But a mid-morning phone call shook things up in a major way. Tom was forced to delegate his basketball media day responsibilities to his colleagues and depart abruptly for Nashville. That morning phone call was to inform him that the healthy liver he had been waiting on — for more than four years — was available.
He then traded a day full of interviews and work for the Vols basketball program for an 11-hour liver transplant surgery at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
It was the culmination of a difficult journey and a quiet battle Tom had endured for almost two decades.
Satkowiak and his wife, Brooke (right), with the surgical team that performed his liver transplant at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Journeying back 19 years, Tom’s life was jolted in 2000 when he was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC), a liver disease causing a person’s immune system to attack the bile ducts. This results in scar tissue and slowly causes the liver to stop functioning due to damaged cells.
There is no cure for PSC. The only fix, for those lucky enough to receive it, is a transplant.
After spending more than four years on the UNOS waiting list, Tom received a healthy new liver back in October. Even in the euphoria surrounding this positive life change, Tom couldn’t help but also experience sorrow and empathy for the family whose tremendous loss made that change possible.
Tennessee men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes has a program mantra: It’s Not About Me. Tom’s grief over the death of a person he had never met, a stranger’s gift that granted him better health and a better life, was the embodiment of that mantra.
Before getting his liver, Tom had a long battle with osteoporosis as a side effect of PSC, having dealt with micro fractures and broken bones. His weight plummeted, among other things, but despite all he was going through, Tom always placed others first.
Some of it was the nature of the profession. But much of it was simply Tom’s personality.
Tom organized volunteer opportunities for the communications staff at the Love Kitchen, where staff would help serve the homeless, clean up and stock the storage rooms. He ensured that the communications staff annually performed community service as a group to help those in need in the Knoxville area.
Within days of his transplant surgery, Satkowiak was on the phone with members of the staff helping out any way he could via text messages, phone calls and emails. He has always placed the University of Tennessee first, not just because it was a home for him (Tom has two degrees from the school), but because he knows at the end of the day, the lives we touch as media relations professionals are important and deserve his full “attention and effort.”
“Tom has always been a man of high ethics, character, and great integrity,” Tennessee Director of Athletics Phillip Fulmer said. “He has always loved the University of Tennessee, and been loyal to his working family.”
Tom has shown great bravery and integrity under some unusual and stressful situations by undergoing a liver transplant before the start of the basketball season, but the most impressive part was how hard he worked to return before the end of November and travel with the men’s basketball team he has covered for the last 11 years.
Tom attended that first game, against Georgia Tech, intent on staying in the background and letting the spotlight shine on the student-athletes.
Because in this job, it’s never been about Tom.
“At the University of Tennessee we are all better because Tom Satkowiak is in our lives,” said Fulmer.
Even upon learning he was selected for the Bud Nangle award, Tom was quick to deflect the spotlight to others.
“I’m shocked and humbled to receive CoSIDA’s Bud Nangle Award,” he said when the award was first announced. “I don’t feel as though I did anything remarkable. I simply came to work and tried my best to serve my alma mater.
“I’m grateful for the incredible support I received from our entire Tennessee Athletics family during a challenging season of life. The opportunity to work alongside them to positively impact our student-athletes provided a sense of normalcy when I desperately needed a distraction from personal circumstance.”
And, as always, Satkowiak’s final thoughts on the award focused on others. “I’m honored to join Mike Williams of Illinois State and Chris Lakos of Georgia as a recipient of this award, and I’m thankful to CoSIDA for this touching recognition.”
The University of Tennessee athletics department produced the following video story on Satkowiak and the importance of being an organ donor:
About the Bud Nangle Award
Presented to a member of CoSIDA or to an individual outside of CoSIDA who shows ethics, integrity and bravery under unusual or stressful situations while carrying out their job duties. Voted on by the Special Awards Committee. Will be selected only if the Awards Committee deems worthy.
It honors Owen "Bud" Nangle, former longtime Sports Information Director at Northern Illinois and CoSIDA Hall of Famer who, in 1974, authored the CoSIDA Code of Ethics which is the standard for the profession to this day. Nangle was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 1993.
In October of 2007, NIU renamed its press box the "Bob and Joyce Nangle Press Box" in honor of Bud and his wife, Joyce.