CASTLETON, Vt. – The Vermont Chapter of the National Football Foundation honored the best of the 2021 football season Sunday night at its 27th annual Vermont Chapter Awards Dinner held at Glenbrook Gymnasium on the Castleton University campus. Student-athletes and coaches from around the state were honored in addition to others who were recognized for lifetime service and achievement.
 
Camden Benoit of Winooski, a member of the Burlington-South Burlington high school football program, was awarded the 2022 Most Courageous Athlete Award and Scholarship, presented by Fred Peet, Attorney at Law.  Benoit overcame a serious injury suffered in his first varsity game as well as a rare degenerative bone disease, producing an outstanding senior season. His resilience paid off, and he was named his team's defensive MVP, earning a spot in last fall's North-South Senior All-Star Game. He also played basketball at Winooski High. This fall he will attend Norwich University, looking to play football for the Cadets.
 
Andrew Gilbert, from Mount Anthony Union High, claimed the Robert Stafford High School Athlete Community Service Award, also sponsored by Fred Peet, Attorney at Law.  Gilbert, a two-way starter on the line for the D-II runner-up Patriots, has given his time with the NAACP, a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in 2021 and in setting up the downtown Bennington holiday decorations. He also has been a camp counselor and he volunteered with Bennington youth football as an official. An honor roll student, Gilbert finished second statewide in a Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competition in personal finance. Like Benoit, he played in the North-South Senior All-Star Game last November.

Earlier in April, six high school seniors were announced as the 2021 Vermont High School Football Scholar-Athlete Inductees.The honor recognizes outstanding football ability, academic achievement and school leadership. They each received a $500 scholarship from the NFF at the event. The 2022 high school inductees are William Addington of Burr and Burton; Jonathan Terry of Bellows Falls, Oliver Orvis of Essex; Slade Postemski of Rutland; Samuel Begin of St. Johnsbury; and Dalton Clifford of Windsor.
 
The chapter selected the six winners from 24 finalists, who were also recognized, from around the state, including Benoit and Gilbert and Dakota Wry of BFA St. Albans; Calvin Gould of Brattleboro; Ben Knapp of Colchester; Ryan Canty of Champlain Valley; Luke Williams of Fair Haven; Harrison Gaudet of Hartford; Trevor Lussier of Lyndon; Matthew Kiernan of Middlebury; Connor Lopiccolo of Mill River; Cole Tipper of Missisquoi Valley; Carson Holloway of Mount Mansfield; Gabe Wescott of Poultney;  Maxime Makuza, Rice Memorial; Christian Titus of Spaulding; Samuel Presch of Springfield; Charles Haynes of Union-32.
 
Seniors Anthony Martinez (Brattleboro, Vt.), an all-league wide receiver from Castleton University, Jacob Schwab (Fairport, N.Y.), a wide receiver from Norwich University, and defensive back Nate Stewart (Easton, Mass.) from Middlebury College were named Vermont Collegiate Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame inductees, representing the state's three collegiate football programs. The day before the dinner Schwab graduated from Norwich and was commissioned as an officer while Stewart was one of seven Panthers recently named to the prestigious National Football Foundation Hampshire Honor Society.
 
Jason Aldrich of Barre, a director of the Barre Youth Sports Association's youth football program was the winner of the Vermont Youth Football Leadership Award for his efforts with football in Central Vermont.
 
The 2022 Vermont Coach of the Year Award, named by the state's coaches, went to outgoing Essex head coach Marty Richards for the leading the Hornets to the 2021 Division I crown. Richards also won the award in 2020 after leading Mount Mansfield to its first-ever state title in 2019. The other divisional coaches of the year were Bob Lockerby of Bellows Falls in Division II and Greg Balch of Windsor in Division III, both 2021 state champions in their respective divisions.
 
The Vermont Football Officials Association gave its season-long team sportsmanship awards. The Stan Amadon Trophy for the North was awarded to Bellows Free Academy of Fairfax led by head coach Craig Sleeman, and in the South, Bellows Falls Union High, coached by Lockerby, was awarded the James Howard Trophy. The officials group also gave its 2021 Vermont Official of the Year award to Jeff Stebban of Colchester.
 
Longtime Norwich University director of athletics Anthony 'Tony' Mariano of Northfield was selected as the winner of the Contribution to Amateur Athletics Award for close to five decades of service to athletics in the state. A St. Lawrence alum, he spent 14 years as a coach in men's soccer and men's hockey before leading the school's athletic department as AD for the last 30 years. Mariano was a driving force in the start of the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) in 2009, the football conference that once featured Norwich and where Castleton has been an original member. He also was instrumental in Norwich's current football conference, the NEWMAC, adding the sport in 2017. 
 
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) of Middlesex was given the evening's final award, the Vermont Chapter's Distinguished American Award. A native of Montpelier where he grew up near the statehouse, Leahy was the Chittenden County State's Attorney before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974. In his six-decade tenure representing the Green Mountain State in the Senate, he has been a longtime proponent of education, human rights and law enforcement as well as one of the top environmental and conservation legislators. He also has been a strong supporter of athletics in Vermont, at all levels.
 
The National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame was founded in 1947 as a non-profit educational organization to run programs designed to use the power of amateur football in developing scholarship, citizenship and athletic achievement in young people. For more information log on to www.footballfoundation.org