TR on Madison.com: Ex-Badger Jake Wood’s Team Rubicon draws praise from Michelle Obama
Ex-Badger Jake Wood’s Team Rubicon draws praise from Michelle Obama
Madison.com Sports
Posted: Friday, September 24, 2010 10:31 am
Count Michelle Obama among the fans of Team Rubicon, the self-described “renegade medical rescue team” headed by former University of Wisconsin football player Jake Wood.
The First Lady praised the work of Wood’s organization in a speech Thursday at the sixth annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York that focused on the contributions and plight of former military personnel.
Wood, who lettered for the Badgers in 2003-04 as an offensive lineman, is a former Marine whose Team Rubicon sprung into action following the massive earthquake in Haiti in January.
Obama recounted that Wood “watched the devastation unfold on TV and he said to himself … ‘Jake, you’re not in the Marines any more, but you have a special set of skills. You would be ashamed of yourself if you didn’t try and use them to help people.’”
“So it’s clear that our veterans and military spouses have the skills and the will to serve and succeed in any environment,” Obama continued.
In a promotional video, Team Rubicon — which was profiled earlier this year by Tom Mulhern of Madison.com sports — says that it raised more than $250,000 in donations and treated thousands of Haitians following the quake before stepping aside when larger aid agencies arrived.
“The goal isn’t to take the place of any of these organizations,” Wood said recently in a profile on the cable network VH1. “The goal is to bridge that gap … until they can get that huge logistics machine up and running.”
