Scholar Athlete dinner set to go virtual

Will be streamed on GameTimeCT.com

Each year since 1984 the CAS-CIAC has honored hundreds of scholar athletes with a gala banquet at the Aqua Turf.

The event, one of the association’s biggest of the year, often draws close to 1,700 guests, with each of the state’s 183 member schools given the opportunity to honor a male and female student from their respective schools.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, CAS-CIAC needed to cancel the live celebration. However, staff members knew they had to come up with an alternative to honor this year’s scholar athletes. The award is for seniors.

“They’ve had enough disappointment,” said John Holt, who helped produce a virtual presentation which will appear Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. on GameTimeCT.com and Fox-61. “Mary Lee Weber was able to get us a place to air it, so we were very excited to be able to do it.”

The presentation runs 28 minutes, 30 seconds, with public service announcements featuring studentathletes at the start and finish.

There were some challenges, such as highlighting 358 student-athletes, presenting a keynote speaker, working with a master of

ceremonies. Holt, a former sports anchor at WFSB, found a way to incorporate all aspects.

Holt conducted interviews with two studentathletes: Wright Tech’s Francisco Garcia and Weaver’s Olivia DeLeon-Gaston. Retired ESPN radio personality Bob Picozzi, who has hosted the event 32 of the past 35 years, interviews keynote speaker Anna Mahon, a former Olympian and current principal at Amity. And there will be profile feature on Maloney’s Haley Lespier, the 2020 Michael H. Savage Spirit of Sport Award winner. During each of those video segments, there will be a scrolling ticker across the bottom of the presentation, displaying photos of each of the student-athletes twice. There will be two other times during the presentation where larger versions of the photos will be displayed for a longer period of time.

“It’s been a busy few weeks, but well worth it,” Holt said. “It’s different than what the banquet would have been, but it allows us to do some nice story telling. There are some nice features involved. Anna talks about perseverance and resiliency. It’s a good message for all of us at this time.”

There are also special congratulatory messages from several Connecticut athletes, including Rebecca Lobo, Miami Dolphins cornerback Byron Jones of New Britain, former Major League baseball player and manager Brad Ausmus of Cheshire, Olympian Donn Cabral of Glastonbury and former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky of Shelton. Ausmus and Cabral were both honored as scholarathletes in high school.

The video presentation is taking place the same night the banquet was scheduled.

Along with the airing on Fox61 and GameTimeCT.com, the program will be available after its conclusion on the NFHS Network, CIACsports.com, the CASCIAC YouTube page, and on Hearst Connecticut Media’s platforms: nhregister.com, ctpost.com, thehour.com, greenwichtime.com, newstimes.com, stamfordadvocate.com, middletownpress.com and registercitizen.com.