The honor’s description made Mike Hollins an easy choice.
Hollins, the former University of Virginia running back who transitioned this past fall to a graduate assistant coach for the Cavaliers, will be presented the 2025 NCAA Inspiration Award in Nashville on Tuesday.
The award celebrates a college coach, administrator or former student-athlete who used “perseverance, dedication and determination to overcome a life-altering situation and become role models, giving hope and inspiration to others.”
Hollins has been an uplifting presence for the UVA community and beyond since he returned to play football in 2023 after surviving wounds sustained during the Nov. 13, 2022, shooting on Grounds that took the lives of three of his teammates: Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry.
“I love to serve, and I love to help people,” Hollins told NCAA.com. “The three guys we lost, Devin, Lavel and D’Sean, were the ultimate servants, the ultimate people of compassion. And I wake up every day and just want to keep that flame going. That’s how I feel the most connected to those guys.”
The NCAA award adds to a long list of national recognition for Hollins since his return to football. After the 2023 season, he won the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Brian Piccolo Award, annually given to the league’s most courageous football player. He won the Capital One Orange Bowl-Football Writers Association of America’s Courage Award; the Comeback Player of the Year given by the College Sports Communicators, Associated Press and the Fiesta Bowl; and the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award.
“Receiving this award is the utmost honor, but it’s really not a Mike Hollins award at all,” Hollins said of the NCAA honor. “I wish the award was the size of a piece of paper so you could fit everyone whose name should be on that award.
“It took the entire community of Charlottesville. The inspiration of that came from losing my brothers, and it came from watching their families persevere, watching my family persevere, watching this coaching staff persevere, this University as a whole persevere.
“When I say community, that’s everyone who puts in any piece of support to this University, and myself, forward.”
