UTEP MINERS
Football Feature: UTEP Junior RB Ronald Awatt
By Drew Bonney Strategic Communications It’s been an adventure for Ronald Awatt since his arrival to the Sun City. Awatt was listed as a running back his first season in 2017. He switched to the defensive side of the ball in 2018, suffered a season-ending injury in 2019, made the switch back to running back in 2020, and now he leads the Miners in rushing after three weeks in books. The Lubbock, Texas, product played high school ball at Frenship where he earned all-district three years in row on the varsity football squad (2013, 2014, 2015). During the last two years, Awatt racked up 1,722 yards rushing, 1,865 all-purpose yards and 12 total scores. Prior to excelling at the running back position, Awatt’s first position was on the defensive side of the ball. “I was playing running back for a little bit and some things kind of went down,” Awatt said. “I was looking more at the defensive side. Because in high school my first position was playing safety. Coach [Keith] Burns had talked to me about it, and I thought yeah, I could play it. I went out there for practice and I broke up some passes. It just went off from there and started to play safety.” 8
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But the switching didn’t end there. Awatt made the change to another defensive position. “After playing safety for a little bit, the depth at safety started increasing,” he said. “They had more people coming in and they didn’t have that many linebackers at SAM. So, coach [Mike] Cox wanted me to go down play SAM, which is kind of like playing safety. I was still covering people and using my athleticism to the best of
my ability.” Speaking of Awatt’s athleticism, he excelled in a different sport before running on the gridiron. “Playing football was something I really didn’t want to do when I was growing up,” Awatt said. “All I wanted to do at first was play basketball at the Boys and Girls Club. Basketball is all I (continued on page 10)
