When a tornado outbreak struck Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011, Dana Duckworth was only an assistant coach of the University of Alabama gymnastics team. She was a choreographer, recruiter and coach, full-time, but when word came that the storms had left local schools without books in their libraries, she added a role: co-founder and board member of Read Bama Read, a charity seeking to provide enough money to restock those libraries.
Nearly five years later, as head coach for the Crimson Tide, Duckworth is still involved with Read Bama Read, alongside Camp Smile-a-Mile for pediatric cancer patients, the Ronald McDonald house for families with children requiring long-term hospital care, and the Power of Pink, the breast cancer initiative started by her coaching predecessor, Sarah Patterson.