« Football 2013

Cairo Santos

School
Tulane
Position
Kicker
Major
Business Management

Classroom

Santos is majoring in Business Management and carries a 3.0 GPA. He will graduate in the spring of 2014. He is a three-time member of the Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll and the Tulane 3.0 Club. He spent four semesters as a member of the 3.0 Club.

Character

Santos has aspirations to play pro ball, excel in the sales field or run his own business after his athletic career. Both of his parents run their own businesses in Brazil. He came to the United States as a foreign exchange student as a high school sophomore and decided to stay and graduate from an American high school and attend an American college. Named the 2012-13 Tulane Athletics Male Student-Athlete of the Year, Santos is a very responsible, intelligent young man who represents Tulane University and the New Orleans community with great honor and pride. He spent this past summer traveling the East Coast and working kicking camps for kids.

Community

His freshman year, Santos performed 40 hours community service including helping build houses in under-served areas post-Katrina. His sophomore year he was an intramural soccer referee and was promoted to supervisor for the intramural sports which is awarded for job performance and increased responsibilities, a position he currently holds. As a junior, he participated in Shadow-A-Student-Athlete Day for the third straight year and Lou Groza Award Children’s Hospital Visit in West Palm Beach, Fla. This year he has spent 20 hours volunteering with Green Light New Orleans which invests energy in people by assisting New Orleans residents in person, one household at a time. Volunteers install free energy efficient light bulbs and backyard vegetable gardens to demonstrate that a mass movement of individual actions creates a significant impact on our environment and community.

Competition

In 2012, Santos was a Consensus First Team All-American, the Lou Groza Award Winner (annually presented to nation’s top placekicker) and the College Football Performance Award National Kicker of the Year. He set the NCAA single-season record for field goal percentage (1.000), going 21-for-21 in 2012 (Previous record was 20-for-20) and was named All-Conference USA First Team. In 2013 he was named preseason First Team All-American by several publications and to the Lou Groza Award Watch List. He has a chance to become just the second player in Groza history to repeat as the award winner. The 2013 Conference USA Preseason Special Teams Player of the year, Santos is one of Tulane’s most decorated players in the last half century.