As students close their computers after a long night of studying or wander home from Sixth Street, Georgia Wooten is waking up to her 2 a.m. alarm, getting ready to head to another shift at the Texas Athletics Nutrition Center.
For the last 12 years, Wooten has been a familiar face at TANC, the dining hall for athletes and staff at The University of Texas at Austin.
During a job fair in the Erwin Center, a manager offered her a position in the department, saying her positive, welcoming energy was undeniable. After starting as a cashier, she worked as a floor attendant, moved to cold food preparation and is now behind the deli counter. Wooten says she has become fast friends with everyone she has met along the way.
“My motto is to treat everybody how I would want them to treat me,” Wooten says. “My main goal is to make a friend every year.”
Behind the deli counter, Wooten is already entering students’ orders from memory before they even reach her. She remembers who had a test they were nervous about, checks in on how it went, and makes her rounds chatting with anyone who crosses her path, all with her consistent, contagious smile.
Wooten started working at UT during the summer, when the only people on campus were football players and staff. Determined to know everyone who came through the TANC doors, she says she made it her mission to learn each name.
“I was memorizing who they were all night,” Wooten says. “That’s how I started giving people nicknames. I had to figure out something different about each of them to remember.”
Seeing anybody that I have met and what they become, that’s the most rewarding part. Being recognized and actually being seen.
Some of the nicknames Wooten gives students tie back to their sport, she says. Swimmers have become “fishes,” with variations like “parrot fish” for someone with standout eyes and “baby fish” for a freshman she calls “tiny but mighty.”
Wooten’s observant, friendly demeanor does not go unnoticed. Student-athletes who eat at TANC every day know Wooten and think of her as their unofficial, supportive team mom.
“If I’m not feeling my best, the students let me know,” Wooten says. “I call them my checkers. They check on me to make sure I’m OK.”
On tougher days, Wooten says she can always find something to lift her spirits. Animals instantly bring her the most joy.
“When things get really chaotic, sometimes you have to regroup and find something to calm you down, even if that means going outside and sitting with the squirrels,” Wooten says.
Wooten tries her hardest to make freshmen and new employees feel especially seen and comfortable, she says.
“They’re my babies,” Wooten says. “Everybody’s my friend.”
She has built long-lasting friendships with athletes who have gone off to play professionally, including Poona Ford, a defensive tackle for the Los Angeles Rams. Ford would stand by Wooten in her corner of the old UT dining hall until he would leave for class.
Ford would tell Wooten, “I hang out with my teammates and classmates all the time — I don’t want to do that,” Wooten says.
This past year, Ford came back to Austin at the end of his season and paid a visit to Wooten to tell her how much she impacted him during his time playing football at UT.
“When I heard his voice, I jumped,” Wooten says. “He said, ‘You always made me feel comfortable. You always made me feel welcomed. You never made me feel like I was bothering you.’”
Over the years, Wooten says those are the moments she thinks about most. She is a people person at heart, and being reminded of that invaluable impression she has on students serves as her constant “why.”
“You don’t get recognized for everything you do, but it’s part of life,” Wooten says. “Seeing anybody that I have met and what they become, that’s the most rewarding part. Being recognized and actually being seen.”
