‘Let’s work’: How a catchphrase helped Eugene Asante rediscover his identity

AUBURN, Ala. – It was late in the fourth quarter at Cal. Auburn was clinging to a 14-10 lead. The defense had just forced a 3-and-out, but after the offense turned it over, the defense trotted back out on the field in need of one more stop. It didn’t matter if they were tired or hurting. It didn’t matter that it was past midnight back home in Auburn. They needed one more stop.

“Let’s work!” yelled linebacker Eugene Asante as they took the field.

“Once you hear ‘Let’s work,’ it’s go time,” teammate Jalen McLeod said. “Because he’s the energy guy. He’s going to bring that energy every play. Even when he’s tired, he brings that energy. ‘Let’s work!’ Once we hear that, ‘OK, he’s right. We’ve got to get right.’”

Cal advanced to Auburn’s 15-yard line on the first play of the drive, but that was as far as the Bears would get. Following a penalty, Asante made a tackle on first down, his 12th of the game. Two plays later on fourth down, with the game on the line, D.J. James intercepted a pass in the end zone to clinch the victory.

On the following Monday, Asante was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance.

The senior has become more famous, however, because of his signature phrase. “Let’s work!”

The phrase itself didn’t start with Asante. It was a Madden streamer, Chibatta Mitch. He would play the video game against another user, and while on a live stream with people from all over the world watching, he started yelling, “Let’s Work!” as a way to hype himself up.

Asante was one of those watching his stream. “Man, this guy is kind of like me,” he thought.

“He was energetic. And I liked the phrase,” Asante said. “So, I came to workouts and I started saying it, started articulating it to the team, and it just started growing and growing and growing. The guys on the team say it now. When we’re starting workouts, they’re yelling, ‘Let’s work!’”

It really started to take off in August when Asante, dressed in full uniform, went around campus on the first day of classes at Auburn and yelled “Let’s work!” to students passing by as part of a video produced by the Auburn Football creative team.

Class is back in session.

LET'S WORK 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/7gpd7i3JFy

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) August 17, 2023

Since then, Asante has started hearing “Let’s Work!” all over town. He heard it at Baumhower’s Victory Grille when he was a guest on Tiger Talk two weeks ago. He heard it walking through Tiger Walk last Saturday. But no matter how many times he hears it, he’s not going to grow tired of it. He loves it.

“The biggest thing for me is just continuing to embody it, continuing to grow upon it and show people that is what I stand for and that is what I am,” Asante said. “I believe in that. The team is the same way. They’re trying to build upon it. If my energy is not up, they try to uplift me. ‘Eugene, let’s go. Let’s work.’ It’s a good thing.”

It’s also a fitting phrase for Auburn given the Auburn Creed and specifically the line, “Therefore, I believe in work, hard work.”

“At Auburn, in the Creed, it talks about ‘work, hard work,’” Asante said. “It’s another way of just reminding ourselves that this is the big stage. This is Auburn. This is who we are. The foundation of Auburn is built on hard-working people. It’s built on people that are blue-collar, that come to work every day and put their hard hat on.

“We’ve seen that with the teams of the past. The Cam Newton era. Coach Cadillac’s era. Just the different eras. We’re trying to embody that.”

At this time last year, Asante wasn’t that energy guy his teammates see now. He had transferred in from North Carolina that offseason. He wasn’t playing like he thought he should. And shortly after he arrived at Auburn in January, his father, Paul Asante-Manu, passed away.

“I had to go through spring ball battling a lot of things,” Asante said. “As a young man in this world, you need your father. It was a hard thing losing him because he was my best friend.”

At one point last season, Asante asked the coaches to be put on the scout team.

The decision turned out to be a blessing. Not only did Asante improve as a player while on the scout team, but he regained some of that confidence by going against the likes of Tank Bigsby, now in the NFL, and Jarquez Hunter every day in practice. He knows he won’t face many better backs this season than those two.  

“Ultimately, it was a thing to try to improve myself,” Asante said. “And that situation, being on scout team, if I didn’t go through that, I feel like I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in today in terms of that hunger and being ready to go out there and show what I can do.”

Fast forward to this season. Through Auburn’s first three games, Asante leads the defense with 19 tackles.

More importantly, he’s back to his old self. The energy and the enthusiasm that was missing last year is back. “Let’s work!” is a perfect example. And nobody would be prouder to see it than his father who played a pivotal part in raising Asante to be the man he is today.

“My dad meant a lot to me,” Asante said. “He developed me as a young man first – in terms of being a good person, caring about others as a Christian and as a man. You hate to see people go through some of the things that he went through in terms of sickness and different illnesses, but I just remember the foundations that he taught me and the principles that he stood on. 

"So, it really fuels me to go out there and play for him because he was just a pure-hearted human being. Every moment I’m out there I’m thinking of him. Every sack I’m getting, I do my bow and then I point up to the sky. That’s all in his honor. I just want to continue to make him proud as his son.”