Collier County Chapter

Matt Sellitto, who has passionately run the NFF Greater Morris County Chapter  in New Jersey since 1995, led the launch of a new chapter in Naples and Collier County, Fla., in 2018, hosting an inaugural banquet April 16 with one senior player from each of the county's high school football teams being recognized.

"We want these young men who are doing things the right way to be recognized," Sellitto told the Naples Daily News. "Too many times we don't recognize the good ones – we give all the press to the bad ones. We're going to put 11 young men in tuxedos, give them a dinner in front of their moms and dads, in front of (their schools') administrations and say, 'These kids are being honored because they did what their mothers and fathers told them to do, they did what their teachers told them to do, they did what their coaches told them to do."

Instead of giving out a $1,000 scholarship to one Collier County senior in its first year, as originally planned, the chapter doled out $16,000 in college money to four graduating high school football players.

“It’s amazing the people that have come out from the community to support us,” Sellitto told the Naples Daily News. “It’s heart-warming.”

Sellitto, honored in 2004 as a recipient of one of the prestigious NFF Chapter Leadership Awards, became an NFF member in 1970, working with the NFF Essex County Chapter in New Jersey before launching the NFF Greater Morris County Chapter in 1995.