By Jared Fields, Editor in Chief
Matt Worthington doesn’t fit your typical mold.
You can try to typecast the Students’ Association president upon first glance – or sound.
His dress, the laid-back clothes with Fair Trade stamped all over, gives an aura the same as any kid from the suburbs wanting to stand out by looking different.
In a Chapel setting, his deep, dramatic voice boasts of superior oratory ability, conveying he mostly likes to talk about himself.
That’s not Matt Worthington, though. Matt can’t develop friendships with every person on campus, but he’ll try if you give him just five minutes.
The stories he tells, with the “dudes” and “mans” thrown in, reveal his past, present and inner nature, explaining much of why he’s not your typical SA president.
To start, Matt majors in English and Theatre, with a brief stint as a Bible major. Instead of passing resolutions and maintaining the traditionally unapproachable SA image, Matt worked to bring students and administrators together. He upgraded the SA Congress’ image with students by using the relationships he’d built to reach outside of SA’s dwelling deep in the Campus Center basement.
With the stereotypical president being a political science major on his way to law school, Matt’s uncommon path to where he is now – and where he’s going – surprises even him.
-I WANNA DO THAT-
Matt grew up in the comfortable side of San Antonio but in a neglected and undesirable neighborhood as the youngest of four brothers. His two oldest brothers unintentionally showed innocent Matt difficult things to understand as a pre-teen kid. Things like drugs, police raids, violence, drive-bys and prison sentences quickly became a norm he learned to deal with.
Matt grew up in a house where the only religious experiences came when his father was asking God to damn just about anything around. If Matt relied on anything, it was the marriage his parents shared. However, on a return trip home from a summer camp, he learned his father left and filed for divorce.
Surrounded by everything not in a Disney movie, Matt learned he didn’t want to do anything that would keep him in that neighborhood, setting or lifestyle.
So when his next-closest brother in age, Greg, got involved
with the Northwest Church of Christ, Matt tagged along as much as he could. Church people seemed happy, and Matt wanted that life.
“I wanted to get baptized because there were a lot of pretty girls,” Worthington said. “Everyone just looked so happy. I wanted that. I wanted that in my life.”
Not coming from a religious house, Matt’s teenage rebellion consisted of him staying out of trouble and actively
participating in the church.
“I think I noticed around middle school that there was a significant difference between me and my friends,”
Worthington said. “At some point early on I kinda had this
question of, OK, this whole Jesus thing; whatever this is.”
Matt and Greg came to know the church youth minister, Jim Counts, pretty well. Matt never saw himself as the college type, but asked his minister how he became a youth minister.
“I wanted to do what he did. So I said, ‘Whatever it is you do, I wanna do that,'” Worthington recalls. “I was like, so you just go there and then you do this?”
The youth minister said it was a little more complicated than that.
-ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE-
Matt attended the church camps growing up and became a part of the Junior Scholars program. People were impressed enough to invite Matt to speak at the closing ceremonies.
Everyone was excited about the soon-to-be Bible major who was going to change the campus. However, he had to pay for school some way.
Worthington’s grades were never good, but that’s not to say he isn’t smart.
“I learned more from the people at my school than I did from the books,” Worthington said.
Trying to find a way to pay for school without gradebased-
scholarships was difficult. But Matt’s experience with many high school jobs helped him when his ACU advisor told him to try out for the Theatre Department.
Matt earned a theatre scholarship and majored in it, but held on to his initial plans of studying in the Bible department.
“I eventually dropped the Bible major,” Worthington said. “They really work you in the Theatre Department. I’d be late with a paper, and they’d be like, ‘It’s OK, you’re a theatre major.'”
With the workload, though, Matt burned out with the department.
Adam Hester, chair of the Theatre Department, asked Matt if he had ever considered working with the Students’ Association.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not really a fan of student government,'”
Matt said.
He didn’t know what the SA was. However, out of respect for Hester, Matt got involved, serving as the Williams’ Performing Arts Center and Smith and Adams representative before studying abroad in Oxford during the spring of his sophomore year.
“In Oxford I made the decision to get out of theatre and switch to English,” Matt said. “I decided to apply for secretary, mainly because it paid.”
Like any organization, talk quickly focused on the next year, and Matt fielded questions about running for president.
“I was like,’ No. That’s way too much responsibility,'” Matt said. “It wasn’t exactly something I really wanted to do; it never was.”
Keeping in mind his childhood, Worthington said campaigning for SA president was one of the most stressful times of his life.
“When it comes to campaigning, you subject yourself to public humiliation almost, if you don’t win,” Matt said. “It was just a feeling of people evaluating me when they don’t know me. And it’s like why? You have no freakin’ clue who I am.”
If he could, Matt would make everyone coffee. In a way, the coffee SA sponsored during finals week was just that.
Reflecting a large part of himself, Matt ran last year on a platform of talking to people. He made no promises and did just what his platform said. He talked to people.
“I did that because I knew that from being SA secretary, you can’t do anything as SA president,” Matt said. “You can’t just say, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ or ‘I’m gonna do that.’ I just knew that you couldn’t change anything if you wanted to change it.”
Leading a large student organization, Matt’s learned a few lessons.
“You have to love people more than you trust them. People are going to let you down, all the time,” Matt said. “I think that love changes things. If people agreed to
be a part of something that I thought was a good idea, it’s only because I extended some love to them.”
-MATT OF ALL TRADES-
Current SA secretary Sarah Newton knew Matt as a friend first, then as a co-worker. She understands how difficult it is for a regular student one day to suddenly become a pillar of ridicule the next.
“He’s not just a [political science] major going to law school, and this is the next step,” Newton said. “He’s this English and theatre major that wants to be in a leadership position on campus, and he thinks that he can really make positive changes.”
Aside from Matt’s own unique personality, the mix of academic backgrounds can explain a lot behind the approach he’s taken to his position.
Dr. Steven Moore, who’s had Matt in two classes, sees a link in English classes in the department and some of the issues Matt holds closest.
“It’s rare to see an English major actively involved in politics,”
Moore said. “They do quite a bit of, not only exploring
literature, but they explore social issues affecting us.”
Possessing such an interest in social justice issues, it’s no surprise when Matt dabbles in a few other related things on campus.
Aside from his SA and school duties, Matt stays active in Jesus and the Hip Hop Prophets, Heartbeat clothing and Silence Sessions. His jack-of-all-trades personality leaks into the part of his personality that wants to plan the next phase of his life.
-WHEREVER THE WIND BLOWS-
Maybe Matt wants to be a writer, or stick with a theatre-related job, or travel to another country to learn the language. He might work for a non-profit organization. For a guy who likes to have his life outlined in two-year chunks, this particular chunk is hard to swallow.
The youngest Hispanic son of a single mother, pursuing a life of his own means being away from his family. The guilt of following the doors open to him isn’t easy for him to handle.
“A lot of the organizations I want to work with aren’t necessarily located close to home,” Matt said. “I’m not always gonna be right next to you. It doesn’t mean I won’t be there for you.”
Although he will stay in Abilene another year to finish his degree in theatre, Matt needs to make those decisions soon. But regardless of what happens then, Matt accepts the consequences of his decisions. His life today is nowhere near what he thought it would be as a high school senior four years ago.
“Maybe I’ll go into freakin’ interior design tomorrow, I don’t know,” Matt said. “I definitely never thought I’d be student body president of anything. That’s weird.”
Always searching for that narrow path, Matt knows he has a lot to go but isn’t scared of the route he’s taking to get there.
“I know that where I am right now is where I need to be.”
And wherever he is at any point in the future is where he’ll need to be.
