GREEN & WHITE FOOTBALL

Mom: Renamed award is 'highest compliment' for late Mike Sadler

Chris Solari
Detroit Free Press

DEARBORN – It’s been seven months since Mike Sadler’s death in a car accident. His mother, Karen, continues to focus on keeping his memory alive.

Former MSU punter Mike Sadler sits with his mother, Karen. Karen called her son her "best friend."

When hearing the National Football Foundation’s Michigan Chapter was renaming an award after her son, she “could only shed tears of gratitude.”

“It’s the highest compliment you can pay my son,” she told the crowd during the Free Press 2017 All-State Dream Team Football Awards Banquet. “And you’ve helped me, in my mission, to keep my son’s name and legacy alive.”

The award for the state’s top Division I scholar-athlete previously was known as the John S. Pingel Award, named after another former Michigan State football player. Sadler, his mom said, recognized winning the award twice (2012 and 2014) as “one of the highlights of his life.”

“It’s an award that embraces academics, athletics, football athleticism and character,” Karen Sadler said. “Mike always said that academic awards meant more to him than football awards, just because football will be over someday. But the academic awards, you can carry them through for you your entire life.”

Dino Folino, MSU’s director of personnel and player development, told the banquet crowd he feels Sadler’s “impact on our program every day.” Folino pointed out a number of places around the Duffy Daugherty Football Building and Clara Bell Smith Student Athlete Academic Support Center where he sees a photo or video honoring the former punter.

“He had many, many accomplishments,” Folino said, stopping as he got choked up before recomposing to read Sadler’s long list of achievements.

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Four-time Academic All-American, twice on the first team and twice on the second team. Two-time first-team All-American punter on the field. Two-time first-team All-Big Ten punter. Finalist for the National Football Foundation’s William V. Campbell Trophy, considered the “Academic Heisman.”

“But Mike’s greatest accomplishment was he was always Mike. He never changed,” Folino said. “You never knew what you were going to get from him. He was quite a character, and I can’t think of him without having a smile on my face. He was a very, very special person.”

Photo provided
Mike Sadler and his mother, Karen Sadler, attended the National Football Foundation awards dinner in 2014, in New York. Sadler was MSU football?s first four-time Academic All-American.
Mike Sadler and his mother, Karen Sadler, attended the National Football Foundation awards dinner together on Dec. 9, 2014, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Sadler is the only three-time Academic All-American in MSU football history.

Graduating Western Michigan quarterback Zach Terrell became the first recipient of the Mike Sadler Award. New Western Michigan coach Tim Lester said he and Terrell talked about how to honor Sadler, and the Broncos plan to wear a decal of Sadler’s No. 3 on their helmets when they play at Michigan State on Sept. 9.

When he won the Pingel Award, Sadler studied Pingel’s back story, having only seen his photo and name around those same hallways where Folino and current Spartans now see Sadler’s visage. He went online to research who Pingel was and how much they had in common.

Pingel was an All-American in the 1930s at Michigan State and was a halfback who punted. Sadler was an All-American in the 2010s who was a punter who jokingly fancied himself a running back.

His mother hopes future award winners will do the same and learn about her son.

“Michael found his journey to be shorter to be a lot shorter than anyone ever expected. But in each day of that journey, he found a prize,” Karen Sadler said. “So even though he left us seven months ago, he is everyone he is with everyone he affected – and there were millions of people in his short 24 years.”