Alex Wujciak ( ) (born April 15, 1988) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

. He was signed by the Browns as an

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in 2011. He played

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Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Early years

Wujciak was born on April 15, 1988, to Alan and Erin Wujciak in

West Caldwell, New Jersey West Caldwell is a township located in the West Essex area in northwestern Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is located approximately west of Manhattan and northwest of Newark. As of the 2010 United States census, the township's pop ...

. His father, Alan Wujciak ( pictured here as#66), played as an

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at Notre Dame, including as part of the 1973 national championship team. 2 years later, he was pictured alongside Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger in a photo taken during the Georgia Tech game, the only game that Ruettiger dressed for and played in. Alex Wujciak attended Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey, where he was a four-year letterwinner playing football at linebacker,

tight end The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...

, and punter. During his junior year in 2004, he recorded 145 tackles, five sacks, and one interception, and 23 pass receptions for 450 yards and three touchdowns. In 2005, he was named the New Jersey Defensive Player of the Year and an

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and '' The Star Ledger'' first-team all-state player.

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.com assessed him as the 17th-ranked, and

Rivals.com Rivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting in the United States. The network was started in 1998 and employs more than 300 personnel. History Rivals.com was founded in 1998 by Jim Heckma ...

assessed him as the 24th-ranked prospective college linebacker in the nation.Player Bio: Alex Wujciak
, University of Maryland, January 11, 2009. Wujciak was considered one of the top inside linebacker prospects of 2006. As such, he was heavily recruited by several major colleges and received offers from Maryland,

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, Rutgers,

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, and Louisville. His mother, Erin Wujciak, said that Alex chose Maryland because he believed that head coach Ralph Friedgen and recruiting coordinator Dave Sollazzo were "straight shooters" and did not make unrealistic promises about playing time.

College career

Wujciak sat out the 2006 season as a

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

. In

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, he suffered a partial tear of the

anterior cruciate ligament The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of a pair of cruciate ligaments (the other being the posterior cruciate ligament) in the human knee. The two ligaments are also called "cruciform" ligaments, as they are arranged in a crossed formation ...

in summer training camp which caused him to miss the entire subsequent season. According to Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen, as a redshirt freshman, Wujciak had been a serious competitor for a starting position. Friedgen said that " ujciak's injuryis a big blow for us right now." In

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, Wujciak started in all 13 games and was the leading tackler for Maryland. He recorded a total of 133 tackles, including 56 solo and 8.5 for a loss of 26 yards, and 1.5 sacks for 9 yards. He also broke up two passes, recovered a fumble, and blocked a kick. He finished the season second in the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC) and 13th in the nation in tackles. Wujciak received second-team All-ACC honors, and he was named the team's defensive MVP. After the 2008 season, Wujciak underwent knee surgery which caused him to miss spring practice, but he was able to recuperate by the start of the 2009 season. In the spring of 2009, '' College Football News'' named him as one of their "120 Players to Know" for the upcoming season, and wrote that "he craves contact and plays with a no-quit, blue-collar mentality ... He flows nicely to the ball, will shed blockers, and rarely misses a tackle." Prior to the 2009 season, he was named to the preseason All-ACC team. Wujciak was included on the Chuck Bednarik Award,

Bronko Nagurski Trophy The Bronko Nagurski Trophy has been awarded annually since 1993 to the collegiate American football defensive player adjudged by the membership of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) to be the best in the National Collegiate Athle ...

, and Lombardi Award watch lists. Before the 2010 season, Scout.com included him at number-33 among its Top 100 Players.Preview 2010 - Top 100 Players; Players No. 21 to 40
, Scout.com, August 22, 2010.

Professional career

Cleveland Browns

Wujciak was signed by the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

as an

following the

2011 NFL Draft The 2011 NFL Draft was the 76th installment of the annual NFL Draft, where the franchises of the National Football League select newly eligible football players. Like the 2010 draft, the 2011 draft was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York C ...

on July 26, 2011. He was waived on August 4, 2011.

Post-Football

After his football career Wujciak went on to become a trooper with the New Jersey State Police.

References

External links

Alex Wujciak NFL Draft Scout Profile
NFL Draft Scout, retrieved March 26, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wujciak, Alex Living people 1988 births American football linebackers Maryland Terrapins football players Players of American football from Essex County, New Jersey People from West Caldwell, New Jersey Cleveland Browns players