Edisson Ramos, University of Dallas, Men's Soccer

EDISSON RAMOS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS, a senior midfielder on the men's soccer team from Prosper, Texas, has been selected as the SCAC Character & Community Male Student-Athlete of the Week for the week beginning December 16.

The SCAC Character & Community award honors the efforts of student-athletes who excel in the field of athletics, and also serve their campus and community.



Ramos formed a vision to have a self-sufficient entity within UD that will be able to provide students with cost-free textbooks. Ideally, the premise of this idea is that students will be able to rent books for a semester and then give it back after the semester ends. This idea transformed into a year and a half long project. On October, 21, 2019, the Groundhog Library became official. 

A small bookshelf is located outside of the UD library for those wishing to donate some books locally. Ramos’ team will be collecting the books daily. 

On November 22, the Groundhog Library hosted its first book drive and received almost 100 books. 

A couple weeks later, the organization announced a partnership with Interabang Books, which is a local bookstore owned and operated by UD Alumni. They were one of the businesses affected by the tornado in DFW earlier this year and their building was destroyed. However, they recently opened back up and are fully operable again. The Groundhog Library was raising money used to support them and in return, they will be sourcing a majority of texts for students.

Ramos had a great team of support to help form this organization and will look to them to continue the growth beyond this year. Ramos is confident the Groundhog Library will become something fruitful and something that will allow students to leave a real legacy behind them. 

Ramos experienced firsthand the struggles a college student can experience and knows there are others that share that same difficulty. Ramos was facing a difficult decision, but was fortunate to have some people from a church he had never met to pay the remaining balance of tuition. Ramos was thankful for the miracle and all the kind woman asked was that he pay it forward, which generated the inspiration of finding a way to help aid the cost students have to spend on a necessity like textbooks for school.  

Ramos played soccer for four years with the Crusaders and one season with the men’s lacrosse team.

People can find out more information about Groundhog Library and how to get involved by following them on Facebook.