The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Hall of Honor
- Induction:
- 2022
- Class:
- 2010
An All-American as well as an Academic All-American, NFL veteran, author, public speaker, humanitarian and broadcaster for ESPN, Sam Acho is one of Texas’ most-decorated letterwinners as a student and an athlete. As a senior in 2010, Acho capped off his Longhorn career in spectacular fashion by earning first-team All-America and first-team Academic All-America honors and winning the National Football Foundation’s William V. Campbell Trophy, which goes to a student-athlete that best combines academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership. That year, he also became the Longhorns’ first-ever winner of the Wuerffel Trophy, an honor bestowed upon an individual that best combines exemplary community service with leadership achievement on and off the football field. He also was a unanimous first-team All-Big 12 selection. During his career, the standout defensive end played in 50 games (26 starts) and tallied 148 tackles, 23.5 sacks, 37 TFL, 44 pressures, eight PBD and eight forced fumbles, while becoming one of UT’s all-time leaders in fumble recoveries with nine. His 19 sacks and 31 TFL in his final two seasons are among the best two-year totals in school history. A fall 2010 graduate of the McCombs School of Business with a Business Honors degree, he was one of eight extraordinary student-athletes nationwide in the 2010-11 academic year selected as winners of the NCAA Today’s Top VIII Award, which recognizes the premier student-athletes in all sports during an academic year. Due to his extraordinary work in the community, he was named the 2010-11 Male Big 12 Sportsperson of the Year and a member of the 2010 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Good Works Team. One of a select group of Longhorns in all sports to earn both All-America and Academic All-America honors, he was a two-time first-team Academic All-American, three-time Academic All-District pick and three-time first-team Academic All-Big 12 selection. Acho was a two-time Longhorn Team MVP, and as a junior started at defensive end for the 2009 Big 12 Championship squad that played in the BCS National Championship. That team went 13-1 and finished the year ranked No. 2 nationally. He also saw significant action on the 2008 Texas squad that spent much of that season ranked No. 1 in the nation, went on to win the Fiesta Bowl, and completed the year 12-1 and ranked No. 3. Selected in the fourth round of the 2011 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals, he went on to play nine years in the NFL, logging 110 games and 57 starts. Acho played four seasons with the Chicago Bears and was his team’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2016 and 2017. A leader on and off the field, he also was a Vice President of the NFL Players Association. The Longhorn who grew up in Dallas received his MBA in 2015 from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, the No. 1-ranked International MBA program in the world. His impact on the world is special, too, as every year he joins his family on medical mission trips to Nigeria. He recently built a hospital there through Living Hope Christian Ministries, an organization in which he serves as Vice President. Acho authored his first book, “Let the World See You,” in 2020 and is the founder and president of Athletes for Justice, an organization that exists to unite professional athletes and everyday athletes to fight injustices around the world.
