001everything that uh the student athletes have done at danbury this was by far the craziest sports seasons ending from last march all the way up and through this fall but you know when we're talking in constant communications with the city um it's very important to understand that we did not have and did a great job following our guidelines and following our protocols to the point where we didn't have anything from july 6 until mid-october when everyone else was shutting down in and out we were able to stay the course get as many games in as we were allowed to get in in the end of october it got a little bit and caught up with us but uh not too many schools were able to do what the coaches and athletes in the fall did
002which was you know stay stay the course take away those temptations to go and social gather and make sure that we did everything so i'm very proud of that that you could do it and hopefully we can roll that into school when we come back in the second semester i do have to say a shout out to mr salvatrini and joanne who like many of the administrators in the district have had to do things four or five times over because we make one plan and it gets switched so this has been a trying year for him but mr salvatrini has never once said anything or complained about it he just went forward and did it also to emily and the trainers did a great job of making sure that we followed the protocols and i
003know many times you may think it's a little bit too much or overbearing but it worked and we did something that a lot of people couldn't and to the fall coaches you all did a fantastic job this year uh you really had more than just the teaching on your plate and coaching from what you're used to this added a whole new level and i couldn't be more proud uh to have you as coaches and i thank you for all that you do so with that i hope we continue to stay on this course uh come back in the second semester get our you know athletes back on the courts and fields and things like that and we can have a successful uh second half of the year so thank you great job athletes uh keep
004up the good work thanks mr donovan uh also like to ask uh mr kirsten to say a couple of words we're trying something brand new uh those who know me uh i'm not really as not very tech savvy in fact mr donovan laughs every time i pull out my phone but i want to thank mr kirsten for helping me get this virtual thing and bill if you would just tell a little bit about the process here yes for sure uh first off if you haven't uh put your bun on uh if you have not uh taking off your ability to speak i would do so uh that all the teachers will attest we hear some interesting things when our students do not mute themselves uh secondly welcome to all the parents all the athletes uh
005that have joined us through the youtube link it has been an unbelievable effort on mr donovan especially chip the a.d mr salvastrini and of course the glue that keeps it all together coach t besides being the best cheer leading coach in the state she does an unbelievable job of putting things like this together the amount of changes this fall has been unbelievable so uh if you have a friend athlete or mom or dad and they could not make this uh the youtube will be available when it's done and we're gonna do our very best to present all of the plaques at the same time that the coach is speaking that's it thank you okay bill thank you very much i just want to echo a couple of things here i thank bill um kirsten for
006helping helping me out sterling mr donovan two athletic trainers this is we're talking about times now in the uh covert times unforeseen on we never had any plan any way of doing this we just kind of every day we had to do something different uh emily and gabriella thank you very much for everything you've done as athletic trainers very proud to have you with us and very proud of the way we you guys handled everything the day-to-day operations with the medical staff and the district with the covet issues um i'd like to thank you coaches seriously i mean we could not have done it without your commitment as mr donovan mentioned we went from july to 6th through almost near the end of the october without an issue and then ultimately we had to limp
007in but we did what we set out to do is give the kids a playing experience that uh was insert you know we look back in a couple years it's going to be a great thing for these kids to have this opportunity to play the athletes those athletes out there thank you very much uh you know no more is more disappointed than me uh not being able to really put championship season together and all those things that you pictures we missed we missed some of the little things that we take for granted want you to know it was not an easy run here this fall but i do thank the coaches i thank you as athletes seniors especially we could not have done it without you and with the effort that you gave us we
008are going to get through this winter somehow as we speak today december 10th we don't know where we are yet with the winter season but we will find out in january early january and we hopefully we can pick up from that particular point it's been a battle but with the holidays and the covid and people you know who've had kovid it's a difficult time all we ask is is that we work forward support one another and do the best we possibly can every day doesn't cost any money to do that again thank you for everyone who's done that and the parents out there thank you for your support okay we're going to start it off we're just going to do the normal try to do that as normal as possible never thought i'd say a
009virtual is as normal as possible but we're going to ask our coaches to uh we'll turn it over to the head coach make their presentations joanna's to my left and she will show the award plaque uh of the winning athlete uh and before probably on monday we'll come out with a day and let everybody know the day the athletes can come to the high school and pick up their award plaques now those with letters certificates pins we have to wait until we get back in school which hopefully is the end of january we will make sure that the kids get all those uh awards there okay so starting off i'm going to turn it over to coach t and cheerleading thanks chip good afternoon i would first like to thank mr salvatrini our trainers emily
010and gabriella the nurses the custodians principal donovan and all of the fall coaches and athletes for doing a phenomenal job to ensure that we can have a fall season also thanks go out to coach kirsten and mr miller for organizing this fall awards presentation for cheerleading we were able to cheer on the sidelines for several soccer and seven v7 football games which we enjoyed we were very grateful that we were able to have a senior night which was one of the highlights of our fall season on november 5th the team was able to participate in our first ever game day competition where the team took first place and had the highest score of all divisions we're hopeful and looking forward to having a winter competitive season i would first like to recognize our three seniors
011who have remained very positive throughout this season they are avery marquis chris king and rebecca camacho thank you seniors i would also like to recognize our team captains who are really trying to keep the team motivated and physically fit during this time our captains are avery marquee abby hamilton grace king and sydney corcoran thank you captains our sportsmanship winner has demonstrated a very positive attitude this year is willing to take on any role and contributes as a team player she is also a very good student as well congratulations go out to sophomore cheerleader sabella congratulations sabella our scholar athlete for cheerleading has a 4.2 gpa she's a senior captain and just recently signed a letter of intent to compete in acrobatics and tumbling at lander university in south carolina congratulations go out to our scholar
012athlete avery markey congratulations avery thank you coach t like to ask uh coach thierry to speak about uh danbury high school football coach thierry thank you chip um obviously the circumstances this year um i feel like we're using that word unprecedented uh pretty often and uh this year was without a doubt um unlike any other um i remember this time last year during the award banquet talking about some of the hardships that we had overcome as far as fields were concerned we were redoing the track and it was difficult we were traveling from place to place just to have practice and you know thanking the coordination of our athletic staff um in trying to help facilitate that and that was even you know that was nothing compared to what we had to go through this
013year um just to be able to do what we were able to do so i can't thank enough um all the people involved from chip to coach t to really everyone our our admins uh from top to bottom um literally from dr sal to uh dan donovan um just getting complete support to be able to [Music] help facilitate uh this season and even happening in any any way shape or form um i tell my players all the time you know i this was this is a badge of courage for them i think that you know typically throughout life as they get older they're going to realize that um you you end you end up talking more about the hardships that you've overcome than the successes that you have at times and this is their great
014story and what they were able to achieve and overcome to be able to have the season that they were able to have and to enjoy any sort of competitive football games this year uh up to this point you know it took a lot from our kids to be able to stay focused fight through all the things that we've had to go through just to be able to do what we did and i'm tremendously proud of all of our student athletes and everyone in our program all of our parents everybody that was involved uh part of our village to be able to make this happen i'm just really tremendously proud to be a part of that and obviously my coaches the sacrifice that they made um day in and day out you know the the the
015sacrifices the risks that we put ourselves under to try to provide the best opportunity for our kids and i'm just tremendously proud of our entire um program in being able to make this happen um the young men we're going to we're going to recognize today i'll start with the freshman my freshman head coach dj williams was not able to attend they had parent-teacher conferences today for reach but he nominated a player from the freshman team for the sportsmanship award his remarks regarding this young man he said he described him as hard working always does what's asked a quiet leader football smart great role model of sportsmanship coachable and detail oriented okay and our freshman sportsmanship award goes to matt morehouse so congratulations to matt for representing everything that this award is about our jv sportsmanship
016award goes to a young man a sophomore um who plays way above his size uh you know he's not you know one of the bigger kids in the program but he plays way above it in the fact that he hits as hard as anybody in the program um outworks a good number of kids on the team uh even though he's only a sophomore shows up every day to practice has a great attitude he's not a very vocal kid he's just a hard-working kid and does everything he's asked to do and made an impact already as a sophomore we're extremely proud of this young man our jv sportsmanship award goes to kashan perkins cushy perkins our varsity sportsmanship award this young man easily could have won the scholar athlete award okay he's one of the uh
017most you know well-achieved academic kids in our program 4.5 weighted gpa 1330 on his s.a.t um and he matches his school work ethic on the field as as one of our quarterbacks um if you haven't gotten a chance to see this young man's story i implore you too he's been nominated for several awards including heart of the giant um he won um the most prestigious award given by the seahack um and he's being nominated for more awards as we speak um the the things that he's overcome in his life to be able to achieve what he has achieved we are tremendously proud of and he's you know a senior in high school and destined to achieve even more at the next level um our varsity sportsmanship award goes to patrick rosetti and last but not
018least our scholar athlete award um this young man is accomplished in so many ways um he's the captain and leader of our football team he represents us in in a positive way in every way shape or form on and off the field his leadership qualities leads by example leads vocally um same thing academically tremendous marks in school um as a football player he's played multiple positions unselfishly has done everything we've asked him to do to help our team be successful um and has exhibited leadership on a whole different level as far as what we needed from him this year to be able to be successful and have a football season um he's taking on almost as like an assistant coach in the role that he's taken on and what i've asked him to do and
019um so our scholar athlete award goes to dj donovan extremely extremely proud of this young man thank you guys thank you coach thierry uh next up is uh boys soccer and coach anthony howard coach hello everyone yes uh i want to start by echoing the comments already made about the athletic department it certainly was uh a big ask for everybody to do what they did to get the the athletes on the field and we're very appreciative of that um i must say i i want a big uh shout out to all the athletes and especially my guys that didn't once complain about the circumstances that we were put under um you know the the temperature checks the checking in the restrictions what we could couldn't do on the uh i didn't have one complaint for
020the for the short period of time that i was on the field with with my guys and i think that a lot of it stems from my my two captains matt silva matthew aracena that just kind of got on with everything that was kind of handy to them and uh credit to everyone for that uh unfortunately we we had our season cut kind of short because of because of some cases and whatever else but the short time that we did have together my team uh played some fantastic soccer probably one of the most technically talented teams i've had since being at the school it was certainly a joy to to watch them compete and play in probably the hardest fcat group on the soccer side in particular where five of the six teams i feel
021would have comfortably made the top eight on a regular season and that that's what made the whole miniature season very very enjoyable because there was there wasn't an easy game and the boys played and and pretty much outplayed most of the teams that we came up against and that was uh that was certainly one of the highlights for me and and in doing so i must say my my guys just enjoyed themselves uh we we trained and we played as if it was probably our last time on the field from from word go there was always that that aura hanging over that it could end short any time unfortunately it did but that meant that every time we were on the field we we enjoyed ourselves we were we were happy and the memories i
022had from the training field as well as the games uh will stay with me for some time um unfortunately we had two senior nights cancelled because of uh covert cases so we were unable to honor our seniors i i had 19 seniors this year which is quite a number and they deserve to be recognized but um unfortunately that wasn't the case um we're hoping to to honor them maybe early spring or in the spring at some sort of event and and give them the the uh the honor that they deserve um i want to thank my staff uh franz warren west reece tommy gaddado and and manny cadarino for their hard work this year as well uh looking at the jv and freshman teams in particular uh the future looks extremely positive for the soccer
023program as it as it has done for many years and and hopefully next year will be somewhat uninterrupted um some some basic awards just to start um from a soccer standpoint from the ciac um we actually had uh an all-state player again this year uh his name was jeremy garcia a young man that came in to the to the country last year and is possibly one of the most gifted soccer players i've had the pleasure of coaching um fantastic talent who was very much the heartbeat of our our team in midfield this year also chris carrasco and matthew matthew silva received all fcat honors this year as well so congrats to those three guys in terms of uh the the sportsmanship awards um first of all tommy gadado is unable to to get on the
024call today but if i start with the the jv uh sportsmanship award ultimately the the message for myself and manny and tommy the staff the jv and freshman team is really to to nominate someone regardless of their contribution necessarily on a game day but it's their attitude throughout the year um their approach to training their approach to other people on the field and and how they conduct themselves on and off the field uh for the jv uh tommy godardo nominated a young man by the name of roberto galaza well done roberto um i'll let manny come in and talk about the the fresh number from on from the varsity level uh this player again didn't complain once trained extremely hard if not harder than a lot of other players on the in the program thoroughly
025deserves a sportsmanship award his name is uh leo vasquez so well done to leo on the on the varsity team um before i pass over quickly to manny uh the scholar athlete award um goes to a young man who i think is probably one of the most well-rounded young men that i've had the pleasure of coaching um very popular um almost the social leader on the team backed it up by you know outside of soccer he was a weightlifting champion and his schoolwork was also extremely extremely good with some great grades as well so my scholar athlete this year is is nicholas attina so well done to to nicholas um so that's it from me i'm going to quickly pass it over to to manny my freshman coach i think the freshman you know their
026first taste of high school soccer as with any athletics was not what it should have been but i think they deserve a little mention from from coach manny as well so thank you everyone thank you coach howard i appreciate that um first of all i want to thank mr salvatrini joanne our trainers emily and gabby for all their hard work this year like you mentioned howard uh as a freshman coming to new school is always hard and this year it was a gift i told my players every day uh practice our gift um and they actually did everything where they were told like you said all the questions and so on um so my my partnership award goes to this player will be into practice every day and complete once and he actually became a
027leader as the season went on and his future looked right so the i nominate uh noah ross for this partnership for the president thank you boys soccer coach katarino coach howard next up coach halas and girls soccer jess hi there good afternoon um again sincere sincere thank you to mr salvastrini mrs tatterzicki emily and gabby everyone else behind the scenes principal donovan who made everything possible this year um one thing you know we have uh a veteran in mr savastrini and his communication is always on point um he's organized he's right to the t and as he gets information it comes in and it goes out and as a coach for me personally that's so helpful um you know just to calm nerves as we're going through something as crazy as this so mr salvestrini
028thank you um for everything you know that you've done to make this possible um one thing i just want to mention that was incredibly helpful and and it came down obviously through danbury was the live link that was provided you know given the circumstance to share with fans and everyone not being able to attend um that link was greatly appreciated you know i know by all of our parents and spectators who were not able to attend our games so for providing that live link to watch all of our games from afar my coaching staff coach moore coach schustner coach anderson coach reggiano coach marovsky for all of your time and effort and just your attention to detailed you know really to provide a safe environment for the kids to come to and just kind of
029let go and enjoy themselves to be at like so many i feel incredibly grateful that we were able to have the opportunity to to practice and compete even if it was just within our region um it brought i think a sense of a small sense of normalcy you know for many of us and and obviously a lot of us needed that so for my seniors i don't want to do a whole lot with um presentation outside of the sportsmanship and scholar athlete because i'm i'm really confident and hoping that we're going to be able to celebrate again in the spring like like coach was just talking about but for our senior class i feel truly blessed to have had this last season with you guys um i was inspired by your growth that you know
030over the last four years your leadership again you never complained you helped you stayed organized in your pods the checklist went so smooth and i really could not have done it without the seniors and our captains this year thank you for all of our supportive parents i know it was difficult for you guys as well but your support your patience adjusting to the schedules of the kids not being in school having to get them to practice you know around your work schedules obviously you you make so much of that possible and i appreciate um all that you guys have done for our sportsmanship award i would like to introduce coach anderson he's here with us today so he can present his ward he is our freshman coach hello everybody it's coach anderson uh talking about
031the short season um i'd like to thank coach uh salvastrini there and joanne emily gabriella all the coaches um i know it was a difficult time this year uh we're going to hope for a better season next year uh when we get past this situation uh i'll talk about my uh sportsmanship award winner uh a great young lady uh that come in every day work hard in practice um took that hard work to the games uh real i was really impressed with her because of the respect that she has for the coach and the teammates and the love of the game also uh as you know uh it's not only just about being able to play the game but also performing in a classroom uh this young lady had a 3.7 gpa which is great
032to hear for a young person um my sportsmanship winner is uh caroline stanton great job caroline thank you all very much thanks coach anderson coach marovsky coach reggiano when you want to take the lead for jv definitely so good afternoon we thank you for being here today my name is coach marofsky and i'm here with my co-coach coach reggiano we were so thankful to have the opportunity to coach jb girls soccer together and what a wild ride it was although our season didn't turn out the way we expected we were very thankful to get to know this great group of girls our girls love to dance tell us when our hair looked good and our girls especially love to do their push-ups and their 15-minute runs we had a lot of strong personalities on the
033team and each one of them were not afraid to be themselves we were thankful to have great leadership on our team too our captain kayla patterson was fearless strong-willed and bold she was so supportive of the other girls on the team too kayla was looked up to by each player on our team and we were so thankful for all of your hard work halo coach somebody we thought deserved recognition like kayla is deserving of this award today she is courageous daring spirited and respected she was constantly working to be a better athlete student and daughter she is respectful to her own teammates as well as our opponents and referees she is truly the definition of having sportsmanship today coach mabowski and i would like to recognize tiana taft as a rep uh recep recipient wow
034of the sportsman award great job t thank you coaches and for our varsity sportsmanship award uh this player like so many she displayed tremendous character she was a team had a team first attitude um a selfless spirit although she wasn't able to be on the field as much she struggled with a nagging injury um that stayed with her kind of throughout the year but you know she was on the like i said team first attitude and just selfless spirit sportsmanship for varsity goes to jenna silva and for our varsity scholar athlete award this player clearly excelled on the field and in the classroom she was always always looking to be better literally in every way possible her work ethic was absolutely tremendous and our scholar athlete for varsity girls soccer goes to lexi silva congratulations
035girls thank you coach hallas now we're going to the coach that's way older than me coach mack girls volleyball you're a mute coach coach you're on mew i don't know coach coach mac just bring just bring your cursor down to the bottom and that white task bar should pop up and then that microphone that has the red on it just click on that yep all right i'm on i am old i guessed all this technology i'd like to congratulate all the athletes and although it's repetitive i want to give a huge thank you to the administration to mr dan donovan to chip salvastrini to joanne gabby and emily who fought for us to even have a season and then were able to manage it right to the end so thank you for all of that
036i um want to talk about our team we had a great season and i actually enjoyed this group i enjoyed even all the hardships with kovid coming to practice every day and the team worked hard they were competitive in every match and they had great leadership from the seniors and i'd like to acknowledge them we have kathleen cummins priscilla george olivia hallas captains haley gundik captain ryan hicks and captain isabel roberts they showed great leadership and they came and practiced hard every day they came and played matches hard every day because they knew that every game could have been their last and even our practices were competitive it was just a tribute to the senior leadership and the hard work that the girls put in um i want to um mention a couple of awards
037that uh were special for the uh fcac first team central division was kathleen cummins and also the first team fci central division ryan hicks ryan also won uh was awarded a second team all-state i just found that out the other day and that's quite an impressive group of players that she's with and she also won the val dickinson memorial volleyball award which is given by the referees to a student who has great leadership great skill and is a great teammate so that's quite a prestigious offer as well or award as well um i'd like to mention those 16 years one last time we have to give the uh scholar award all six of those girls are on the national honor society a very bright group of individuals and classy individuals as well um i would
038we did get our senior night in and i want to thank mrs perrault for spearheading that and all the parents who put it together it was uh quite a nice event um we um i'd like to thank my coaches as well tom rotunda who's not here uh aaron stores and katie feldman uh the one hard thing that i found for volleyball was we had to wear the masks in the gym and in the beginning it was not a lot of fun but the kids got used to it and after a while it uh everybody just wore their mask and that's just the way it was um the sports person awards it's always a special person they're the person who is a great teammate who has great character all the coaches have mentioned all the attributes
039of these individuals and for the freshman it was olivia robles for the interesting enough when i asked my assistant coaches who would be this the sports person award they each came up with the names right away it wasn't even a thought they're really well deserving ladies for the jv it was emily mattis and for the varsity it was a junior maya sang for our um varsity uh scholar athlete award uh like i said all the girls were on the national honor society i think her gpa if i'm not correct is like a 4.5 i don't even know how you can do that and that goes to olivia hallas i'd like to wish all the athletes a happy holiday and certainly a happy happy 2021. thank you thank you coach mack next up field hockey and
040coach pro coach thank you so much tip i would like to join my coaching colleagues in thanking our athletic director mr salva streeting and mrs tadazicki for their tremendous support during this extremely unique season you face so many different challenges and you're able to handle everything in a positive upbeat manner thank you so much for the numerous sports view updates i use them as my alarm each and every morning your tremendous communication skills was very very effective thank you so much we would be remiss if we didn't give a big thank you to our two athletic trainers emily beers and gabriella prata your assistants on the sidelines both physically mentally as well as emotionally was appreciated i would also like to give a big thank you to our coaching staff varsity volunteer assistant coach martino
041as well as our jv coach coach cole and our freshman coach coach pakowski they were tremendous assets this year we would also like to thank our field hockey booster organization for all their efforts and hard work i also would like to thank our parents for their positive support and of course we would like to thank all the players from all three levels we were so happy to get our season in and play the majority of our games we are looking forward to working with our underclassmen next year we want to wish our 11 seniors the best of luck in their future endeavors they are stephanie coelho savannah dorsch captain grace dikeman captain harley hodge marissa hope yari martinez captain brenda mello lucia o'brien reggie silva julia wabasher and ava williams senior captain harley hodge was
042named to the alepsiac central regional team congratulations harley for all of your hard work our varsity scholar athlete was grace deichmann who excel within the classroom as well as the playing field well done our varsity sportsmanship award winner was reggie silva who never ever gave up regardless what the scoreboard said reggie was out there battling each and every day again congratulations reggie and now let's hear from our jv coach coach cole good afternoon everyone um our sportsman award is going to go to the young lady who may be one of the quieter players on our team but she is always willing to jump in when and where she is needed on a moment's notice she knows the sport and is very dedicated to her team always a positive attitude as well i want to congratulate
043isabelle chaffalo on her award i'm also going to present the freshman award also um the freshman sportsmanship award is going to go to a dedicated hard worker she was always willing to put in the time and effort to not only herself but all of her teammates and take the time out to help some of them as well congratulations to hannah and i'm sorry if i don't pronounce your name right palembo congratulations girls and keep up the hard work and we'll see you in 2021 thank you girls field hockey coach bro coach cole next up coach murray boys cross country coach rob i don't think rob might coach that you're on mute still coach turek can you step in coach oh he just joined again we'll come back we'll come back to coach murray so we
044have coach turek coach first of all this is a public thank you for everything that you've done for all the years here at danbury high school loved having you i tell my wife all the time you're like having another daughter around here but i miss you making it harder to talk coach for everything okay wish you a lot of luck over at bethel high school girls cross country coach turret um thank you coach just made this harder than what it already was um the summer after receiving many calls facetimes and text messages from athletes fielding questions asking what is happening this fall all i could tell them was i don't know but i know i'm going running i ran every single day of the summer and then many more and i was trying to set
045an example for them to keep moving forward that became our mantra we started to look for the good and be grateful for any opportunity we had started with the opportunity to be able to condition together again and then we got to put on a uniform we were able to host three home meets we got to practice every day at terry wilde which is one of my favorite places we got we'll have enough ciac albeit a little different um championship meet at the end of the season we got to run we have to laugh encourage one another and most importantly move forward together running is never cancelled being a good friend and a good teammate is never cancelled this is more important this year than any other i hope they take this experience with them and
046continue to find the good in everything they have i want to say thank you to the seniors emily as kona lucy chen maya golly faith luckner and jennifer mazza our senior leadership came from daniela grulon pena and vivian mendez our um our scholar athlete winner for dick for girls cross country is anna rita lynch anna rita is a girl who exhibits incredible work ethic kindness her grades are wonderful and she puts a hundred percent into everything she does um our sportsmanship award goes to someone that i've known for a very long time and i'm so proud of her is vivian mendes vivian has been a good friend and a good teammate to everybody on our team um all her years at danbury um i'm trying to say see you later instead of goodbye um i
047have been a coach at danbury high school for 16 years and the people that are on this call are many of them i would consider my family thank you coach elvis training coach tatrasicki i miss seeing you both every morning coach mari thank you for everything you've taught me um i appreciate it all and uh coach radford you've become a very good friend um and coach kirsten despite all the hazing i had received for a while i'm better for it in the end wade wish you all the best and thank you very much thank you coach turek i'm gonna miss you okay up next boys cross country coach murray yes good afternoon everyone sorry about that my uh four-year-old son just came home from school so he's trying to run around the house getting bribing
048in with some m ms anyways um first of all i just want to you know really take a moment here to uh you know thank uh coach turk for you know everything she's done for the boys uh cross country program um and for me personally you know as we all know as coaches um you know it's really important for us to establish you know you know strong connections and relationships with our student athletes and you know i can surely say that you know coach turek has really you know developed um as long along with myself um a strong relationship and respect for each other in which what we do every day um as people um as um you know productive people in our communities and also what she's done for all the girls and boys
049um at deborah high school um for the last 16 years so i want to thank her for her unbelievable uh you know dedication to dhs athletics and specifically our cross-country runners thank you very much coach um again like everyone has uh mentioned you know we could be on this um virtual banquet for hours discussing all the challenges um that we all had to kind of overcome many of us kind of faced similar um challenges um but we we've gotten through it i mean we're going to continue um not only as as our team but in our program but collectively as the athletic department going to continue to do what's best for our student athletes in march 4 with a positive attitude knowing that you know we will be stronger um from this um from this
050from this adversity that we're all facing each and every day it will truly be embedded in our minds as we um face other challenges in in the future and we will be stronger for it for this i want to thank um everyone that everyone else has thanked uh from the top to the bottom from our administration administrative team led by mr donovan all the way to um the athletic uh leader of our programs mr savage streaming joanne the athletic trainers um our parents um also our just our student athletes particularly our seniors um they're going to be truly missed when i talk about relationships um i can truly say that this group more than any other group we have developed an unbreakable um relationship that will be there forever i want to thank my my
051seven seniors uh glenda doty damien armorell eduardo ales peyton bach gabriel kotong joaquin lopez gibbons and jared zeiner they've all done a tremendous job you know leading our program um through the summer you know whether we ran um together you know starting in july or whether they followed the uh the training plans that i provided for them um prior to that or any time that we weren't able to meet they did tremendous job as a scene as a senior group um we did have uh captains this year um they were gabriel katong glenna doty um damian armarol on peyton bach and just want to make sure i'm not missing anyone um i'm sorry and jared zeiner okay those were our five captains this year um our team we never had one individual person that missed
052um a practice um or were not was not accountable for not being at practice um so under severe circumstances which you know some kids walk to practice some kids roll their bike to practice some kids ran to practice um some kids came with their sibling to practice um just unbelievable mindset and attitude to be there for each other um every single day so we did something unique that we've never done in our in the history of our program we uh we recognized every athlete on our team as a varsity athlete this year for the unbelievable commitment that they gave to not only denver cross country but danbury high school and represented our community with great pride and great dignity um our record was three in one you know we weren't really able to uh race
053richfield because they were quarantined um so we did finish the season three and one gabriel quatong one of our senior captains um did sign uh d1 scholarship with umass amherst so congratulations to gabriel in his um his continuation of his academic and athletic career at the university of massachusetts in amherst um awards i like to have uh coach um rashford if he can unmute himself uh just talk a little bit about our freshman award recipient christian christian foreigner see if he knows how to see if coach knows how to unmute himself ah there we go big boy um the thing that that i love about christian is the uh the nickname that i gave him we gave him the nickname scrappy because he never ever would give up coach would send a certain group out
054on a four mile run expecting the other two groups to do less and christian said no i'm going out i'm going to do four i don't care if i finish 20 minutes after everybody else i don't care if i have to walk i'm going to do whatever is expected of the best people on a team it speaks volumes about his character it's a tremendous choice congratulations christian and if coach rashford could also speak about rgb uh recipient um for our sportsmanship award even though we did varsity um i like to also recognize adrian guerrero for his sportsmanship award this year as well coach rashford yeah i unmuted okay um again another young man that that cut four minutes off of a time that he ran last year he came he worked tirelessly he wanted coach
055to have higher expectations i've never worked with a coach that's has as much as high as expectations as rob and adrian wanted him to push him more coach push me more coach expect more of me than you already do everybody else so again a great honor a great and very deserving award congratulations finally our varsity finally our varsity recipient for this year is one of our senior captains uh damian armorell uh damien started with us as a freshman and just you know gradually worked his way physically to a varsity level one of our top you know scoring athletes um but he also just you know has that really great balance um and leadership ability to not only work hard um he led a lot of our daily continuous runs um he pushed himself in workouts
056but he also did a great job um just being very personable um very encouraging very friendly to all of his peers particularly those underclassmen that sometimes it's hard for the upperclassmen to relate with but he was there for them every day mentored them guided them and you know i thought he was a great example along with our other seniors but he was a great example of what it means to really be a varsity recipient um and really truly honor this this um this award so congratulations to danny and armorell for his um varsity sportsmanship award um our scholar athlete this year um is a senior um again you can't really get away from not being a hard worker across country when you have to put in you know 60 miles a week um over 2000
057miles between july 1st and you know usually middle of november you're running about 2000 miles um wearing out a lot of rubber underneath your feet this person over all of his adversity um still did the job not only for us on the cross-country courses but he also did the job academically um just a tremendous kid joaquin lopez gibbons congratulations and then finally i just want to recognize again um adrian was one of our most improved athletes um but also want to just recognize our bull bulldog recipient this year goes to the mo the toughest competitor that we see out there in the cross country course that is giving their 100 effort uh may not be the fastest kid on the course but it's someone that is just digging uh deep into uh into the into
058their soul to push through um that pain that they have to inflict on themselves in order to um be able to kind of produce the type of performance that's gonna help that their team their teammates out this year's bulldog award goes to jared zeiner congratulations to all all the student athletes um really respect all of our coaches um at denver high school um thank you for all your hard work and i look forward to being back in person with each and every one of you as soon as we can thank you coach murray uh last but not least i just want to take a moment before i introduce coach schuchat i'd like to thank his young ladies especially girl swimming for being very strong about competing this year when we don't have a pool they
059were in brookfield uh different times all over the map they were virtual they had meats they competed and uh i want to thank you coach shoe chat for that uh you really helped us out a lot handling a lot of those things and of course your ladies competed very well and we appreciate that so i'd like to finish with coach shoe chat girl swim thank you mr salvation you just stole half my speech though um it has been a very difficult season um but again like we said like echo all the other coaches uh big thank you to mr salvatrini to joanne you guys without your support and hard work the season couldn't have happened at all um and that's what i've tried to tell my athletes the entire season as we as we went
060on that you know we need to be grateful that we were able to compete um to any capacity um so we're really grateful for your guys help uh emily and gabriella were awesome they were so quick to respond to any questions any anything we did the sports u app was huge this year i think communication was was really great and like i said uh emily and gabrielle did an amazing job getting back uh so quickly uh so this year we had to go to the ymca pool we had about uh eight o'clock at night practices so that was really difficult for the girls i really appreciate the parents as well thank you parents for for dealing with that especially we all know the beginning of with cohorts and uh shortened practice times that that it
061was definitely difficult for the teams to get rides to and from practice and make sure um that they were getting there on time and and had a ride both ways um we we in the beginning of the year we had to be in an outdoor pool at the ymca in about 30 degree weather at 8 o'clock at night and no use of locker rooms for girls swimming i really respect all of the girls for for working so hard and showing that dedication and pride for their sport to come out and um and deal with these conditions that we had to deal with um like mr salvation he said he never thought he'd have virtual awards i i never thought we'd have a virtual swim meet um and we had a couple of those this year
062which were again the girls really took this in stride um to compete with no other team there um and and see the girls up and cheering each other on and pumping each other up to um to compete the way they did was really impressive to see um and i really commend the girls for doing that our captains were amazing this year priya patel tanya dimelo ali simmons and olivia melendez um they all did an amazing job uh making sure the girls kept socially distanced that they wear their mask um helping out with the kovitt checklist uh without your girls help i really appreciate you captains um you know we could have had a stop to our season and i think the hard work by our captains and and all the captains and all the athletes
063this this fall season um really really showed by us not having to shut down um and and not be able to do that we were able to have our senior night this year um and that was coordinated really nicely by by our team the girls did an amazing job for us to be able to support our our our seniors and give them a good send off for their final season um i'll get to my awards um our sportsmanship award is to someone who always came to the pool smiling happy to be there she showed amazing positivity in such a trying time that we're in right now she was always making myself making other teammates laugh at the meet she was always so supportive of everyone and and really um was there to cheer everybody on
064and the award goes to tamiya espinal tamiya espinal for sportsmanship congratulations to mia um and lastly our scholar uh a scarlet athlete goes to another uh one of our captains um she she did an amazing job over the past two years of really um helping out with the team in every aspect that we needed um taking care of apparel helping out with the kobe checklist um you know showing an amazing attitude last year and this year even last year we had limited pool time and and she really uh made sure the girls knew um that we were there to to perform and have a have a you know nice season um but an amazing job for her to get the scholar athlete award it goes to priya patel congratulations priya thank you everyone appreciate your
065time thank you coach uh just like to take a moment uh again thank you coaches athletes for a quite an interesting fall let's be clear about it we would not have been here or not be here without the support of you coaches uh emily and gabriella school administration school district to allow us to compete it was not an easy task not an easy it's not one of those things that you would like to be doing after 40 years as an athletic director i learned a bunch of stuff this year about myself uh you know you i always tell people you have to draw on motivation any way anyhow to improve to be the best you can every single day i hate covet i hate everything about it um because it hurt my kids it hurt
066our program it hurt our coaches more fire more passion than ever before to get us back to the level we'd like to be and hopefully we can get there next fall and hopefully we can start to see some changes come this spring i'd like to see darian greenwich any of them run a virtual award program like this this is great stuff i love you i wish you all a wonderful holiday season got to sit back and you gotta look who's in your room with you your children your parents your cousins your whatever i keep forgetting we have to social distance according to dr fauci no big pasta night on christmas eve for salvastrinis this year thierry but i wish you all well and thank you for your effort and again i thank you athletes out
067there and please athletes you have to social distance wear masks thank you very much appreciate everything you've done have a good holiday take care folks you