Wisconsin Football Countdown: No. 43, Aaron Stecker
By Jim Oxley
As the countdown to the first Wisconsin football game of the season continues, Badger of Honor is taking a look at Badgers by the numbers, checking in on a different Badger or Badgers players who wore the number corresponding with the remaining days until the Badgers head to Texas to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday, Sept. 5.
Next up in our countdown, signifying 43 days until college football is back, is Aaron Stecker.
Stecker spent two years at Wisconsin and became a special teams dynamo for the Badgers from 1995-1996.
Wisconsin Badgers
His biggest claim to fame might be the 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Minnesota November 11, 1995. He is one of three UW players to have a 100-yard kickoff return, joining Ira Matthews (1976) and Michael Jones (1984). His 100-yard return was the longest in all of college football that season.
His 258 all-purpose yards (117 rushing, 17 receiving, 127 returning) in that game against Minnesota is also tied with Lee Evans‘ 258 receiving yards for 13th all-time at UW for total yardage in a single game.
Stecker is seventh all time at UW with 45 career kick returns and seventh with 1,015 career kick return yards. He is 10th in school history with a 22.6 career kick return yardage average.
Stecker decided to transfer away from the Badgers ahead of the 1997 season as the emergence of Ron Dayne took away any chance he had at the starting gig. He played out his college career at Western Illinois, and went undrafted in the 1999 NFL Draft.
Stecker would go on to play in the NFL from 1999 through 2009, and was a Super Bowl Champion with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII.
He had 1,526 career rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns in the NFL.
Who wore No. 43 first?
• Guard G.R. Connor first wore No. 43 for the Badgers in 1927.
Who wears No. 43 now?
• A pair of redshirt freshmen currently sport No. 43 for the Badgers. On offense, wide receiver Peter Roy of Muskego, Wis., wears the number. On defense, outside linebacker Ryan Connelly wears No. 43.
Who wore No. 43 last?
• Linebacker Michael Trotter last wore No. 43 for the Badgers.
Stay tuned to Badger of Honor as we continue our daily countdown in preparation of the season opener against Alabama.
Next: Wisconsin Football Experience