Dan Prindle, the Flyers’ 273-pound offensive lineman, was taking a much-needed nap late Tuesday afternoon when his mom sent him the text message.
The night before he’d stayed up until 4 a.m. finishing a report on a summer trip to Austria, Moldova and Romania, where he had applied mechanical engineering concepts to renewable energy systems.
After just a couple of hours of sleep, he had made his 8:30 a.m. class, then immersed himself in his studies and myriad other involvements — he’s now coordinating UD football players’ visits to Children’s Medical Center — until he finally needed that quick nap before the Flyers practiced that evening for Saturday night’s game with Central State.
When he finally got to the football locker room in the back of UD Arena, he said he called his mom: “I told her how tired I was and she said, ‘Were you up all night celebrating?’
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’
“And she goes, ‘You have reason to celebrate. You won the award.’ ”
Prindle was one of just 22 players from every level of college football — from BCS powerhouses to NAIA schools — to make the Allstate/American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team.
The honorees were selected because of their contributions to their campus and their community.
Prindle — a senior out of St. Brigid Catholic School in Xenia and then Carroll High — is the first UD player to make the team, and certainly deserving.
From the kids at Children’s and the homeless and hungry of St. Vincent DePaul to Special Olympians, gifted children at UD’s summer engineering camp and people in need in Appalachia, the Flyers’ starting right tackle the past two seasons has been a volunteer guardian angel to them all over the years.
“He’s just a community-minded young man,” said Flyers head coach Rick Chamberlin. “Whether it’s on the football field or in his involvements away from it, Dan’s a guy who gets the job done.”
It’s been that way since he was little.
“I was just 6 or 7 — maybe even kindergarten — and my grandpa and grandma would pick me up every Friday morning in the summer,” he said. “We’d deliver meals on wheels to the shelters and those people physically imprisoned in their homes.
“I just loved being the helper and some of the old ladies we brought food to would make a fuss over me and say, ‘Oh you’re so handsome.’ It put a smile on their faces — our visit was really something they looked forward to — and when you left, you felt like a million bucks.”
Dan was named after his late grandfather and now he’s put the family legacy of giving back squarely on his own broad shoulders.
While at Carroll, he was so involved with the wellbeing of his fellow man that Patriots football coach Steve Bartlett was only half joking when he said: “I thought Dan was going to be a priest.”
While he has no starched collar now, Prindle does have a gospel:
“I’ve been given an enormous amount of opportunity in my life, and I think it’s important to get out of your comfort zone and share perspectives — share whatever you can — with people who need it. You’d be surprised how many people appreciate you reaching out your hand and saying, ‘What’s going on? Can I help?’ ”
Coming out of Carroll, he said he narrowed his college choices to Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve and UD:
“Engineering was number one. I wanted a strong traditional football program, too. And I wanted a sense of belonging. All of them had the first two and UD swayed it with the last one.”
The past two years he’s been one of the executive officers of UD’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Two athletes from every sport are in the group that not only serves as a conduit between the teams and the administration, but provides ways to connect athletes to the campus and the Dayton community.
And Prindle’s especially good at the latter. He just put up a list to get 20 volunteers to visit Children’s on two upcoming Mondays the Flyers have off. He not only hit the quota in 24 hours, but got a waiting list.
Although he was awarded a plaque for making the Good Works team, he still hadn’t seen it when he walked onto the practice field Tuesday night. Nor did he seem too concerned about it.
“I appreciate it, but I don’t do this — and neither do my teammates — for a trophy,” he said. “When you see that smile on the face of some little kid in the hospital or some old person you’ve just brought a meal to, that’s the reward.
“There is nothing better than that.”
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