From Fighting Irish Media:
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Dick Corbett Head Football Coach Marcus Freeman and graduate student linebacker Jack Kiser have been selected to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team, which recognizes college football athletes and an honorary coach each season for their unwavering commitment to community service and their “good works” off the field. Kiser has also been named an Allstate Wuerffel Trophy semifinalist.
Each season, one honorary head coach is selected to the AFCA Good Works Team; Freeman’s selection marks the first time that a Notre Dame head coach has earned the honor.
Kiser is one of 11 FBS players to be selected to the AFCA Good Works Team; all 11 student-athletes comprise the semifinalist group for the prestigious Wuerffel Trophy.
Notre Dame players have been named to the AFCA Good Works Team on nine previous occasions: defensive lineman Grant Irons (1999), linebacker Courtney Watson (2003), linebacker Derek Curry (2004), offensive lineman Bob Morton (2006), safety Tom Zbikowski (2007), quarterback Dayne Crist (2011), offensive lineman Mike Golic Jr. (2012), tight end Nic Weishar (2018) and linebacker JD Bertrand (2022). Weishar was selected as the Team Captain of the 2018 Good Works Team.
The Allstate Wuerffel Trophy, college football’s premier award for community service, is presented to one of the 11 FBS players elected to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team who best combines exemplary community service with leadership and performance on and off the field. The Wuerffel Trophy finalists and recipient will be selected by a national voting committee, including a fan vote component. The 2024 recipient will also be recognized as the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team captain.
Freeman is an avid, consistent supporter of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Michiana, an organization which helps patients and their families during extended hospital stays. Each Friday before home games during the season, Freeman visits the patients and their families, bringing along student-athletes who would like to join him. The group delivers lunches and brings Notre Dame gifts and games to the patients. However, the most important part of the visit is the time spent with each patient, getting to know them and playing games.
Freeman has also taken part in numerous charitable engagements, including visiting local schools such as St. Adalbert Catholic School in South Bend, where he surprised students with tickets to the spring football game, and speaking at philanthropic events, such as Erin’s House for Grieving Children, which supports families who have experienced a death.
Kiser has participated in several community-facing initiatives during his time at Notre Dame. He has twice served as the player committee chairman for the program’s Cleats For a Cause initiative, which uses custom footwear to raise awareness for local nonprofits, then auctioning off the shoes with the proceeds benefiting the organizations. In his role, Kiser chairs the player committee, which selects the charities that will be featured in the initiative, communicates directly with the charities and makes appearances, and works with the designer of the shoes. Throughout the months leading up to the initiative this season, he has organized players to volunteer at and support charities that will benefit from the initiative.
He served as the Fighting Irish Fight for Life football team lead for the past three years, from Fall 2020-Spring 2023, a program which pairs a local pediatric patient with Notre Dame Athletics teams to become a true teammate.
Additionally, Kiser worked with local low-income families to perform tax returns this past spring on a weekly basis leading up to Tax Day. He has also made an impact in his home community, as he visited his former youth football team to surprise local kids from his area, spend time with the team, and give them tickets to a Notre Dame Football game.
Kiser has also been involved in the Notre Dame chapter of Uplifting Athletes, supporting the local rare disease community and their families, and would also regularly visit patients and families at the Ronald McDonald House with Freeman. He earned selection to the 2024 National Football Foundation Honor Society, and in 2023 was awarded the Dean’s Graduate Business Award and the Tom Frecka Academic Achievement Award, recognizing the top GPA in the Master’s of Science in Accountancy program at Notre Dame.
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