Badger legends is a series dedicated to celebrating our former men’s soccer players who have taken their experience at Wisconsin and shaped it into a new path. Each month, we’ll be celebrating one men’s soccer alum from a different decade.
This month we celebrate the career of Amadou Diagne, who played striker on the first varsity men’s soccer team in UW-Madison history in 1977.
Amadou’s story begins in Senegal, where he was born in the coastal city of Saint Louis in 1951. The sport of soccer was ingrained into the city, feeding Amadou’s love for the game with pickup games on the streets.
“It was during those pick-up games of 2-on-2; 4-on-4 or however many players we could have that I learned most of the basic skills of the beautiful game,” Diagne explained.
“Passing, dribbling around opposing player while avoiding collisions with pedestrians, cars and bicycles; it made me the player that I was.”
Diagne’s first taste of soccer success came from his selection to his elementary school’s team, where he won the city school’s championship. Amadou credits these early experiences for helping him learn the basics of the game, as well as helping him unlock his competitiveness, and “a strong drive to always rise-up to overcome the challenges that I am confronted with when facing an opponent.”
Once Diagne reached high school, he discovered his strong interest in biomedical sciences. Studying up on the medical advancements and scientific breakthroughs made at American academic institutions invoked a sense of desire in the young Senegalese man, one that would follow in the footsteps of his brother, Edris. Edris, now an Emeritus Professor, was hired by UW-Madison to help create the African Studies Program.
Amadou made it his goal to attend Wisconsin, and with the help of his brother, he made it to America, studying bacteriology and nutritonal sciences as a lab specialist at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research.
Despite Diagne’s dedication to research and his studies, the then-UW student still found time to play soccer. His skill honed from his home country earn him a spot with the Shorewood Hills Soccer Club of the Madison City League. After finding success in regional championships, Dr. Bill Reddan spotted Diagne and convinced him to join the University’s new soccer program, of which Reddan was to be the first head coach.
“I jumped at the…
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