From left, Tim Feshler, president of the Doc Boisoneau Northern CT Chapter, Nils Jerger and Avon High football coach Jeff Redman.
AVON, April 1, 2022 – Avon High senior Nils Jerger will be recognized as a Scholar Athlete by the Doc Boisoneau Northern Connecticut chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame at their 55th annual banquet in May.
Schrecengost will be one of 13 high school football players to be honored with the Scholar Athlete award by the Doc Boisoneau Northern Connecticut chapter for excellence in academics, character/community service, leadership and football prowess.
Avon High coach Jeff Redman will be honored as the chapter’s coach of the year.
Jerger is a three-sport athlete at Avon. He was an All-Conference tight end and linebacker on the football team last fall and was an All-Conference wrestler during the winter. He will be throwing the shot, discus and javelin this spring on the track and field team.
The award goes beyond performance on the field, Redman said. “It more than your performance on the field,” he said. “It (is about) your performance in the classroom, your performance in the community, your performance with leadership.”
Jerger is an outstanding student and is a member of the National Honor Society. He is a member of Boy Scout Troop 274 in Avon and will receive the rank of Eagle Scout shortly.
His Eagle Scout project was to refurbish and lean up the historical sports team plaques that were posted in the hallways near the gymnasiums and locker rooms at Avon High. The plaques dated back to the early 1960s. The school opened in 1958.
According to Redman, it was an initiative begun by former teachers and coaches Jim Taft, Jack Trumbull and Marty DeLivron. A team had to have at least a .500 record to get their team plaque hung in the hallway.
A team of six to eight Boy Scouts from Troop 274 and football players worked with Jerger to take down each plaque, photograph it and refurbish the boards that the plaques were mounted on. Each board was painted navy blue.
Jerger and his Eagle Scout team took the information that was on the individual sport records boards near the cafeteria and Athletic Department office and digitized it. Soon, three large screen monitors will replace the record boards. Updating school records will be much easier and quicker now that it will be digital instead of a physical board.
As part of the Eagle Scout project, Jerger built three wooden cases for the monitors.
Jerger was a tight end for the Falcons this fall – a key blocking position on a single-wing offense that ran the ball virtually each play. “Without that block, you can screw up the play so it’s pretty important,” he said.
The Falcons went 7-3 this season, qualified for the CIAC Class M playoffs for the first time since 2012 and won the CCC Tier 4 championship. Quarterback Tabor Engle ran for 1,769 yards, the fourth highest number of rushing yards in the state reported to Max Preps, and 17 touchdowns.
On the wrestling mat, Jerger earned All-CCC honors by finishing second at the CCC Tournament at 220 pounds. He was 18-15.
Jerger will be attending Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado in the fall where he plans to study electrical engineering.
Redman completed his tenth season as a head coach of the football team this past fall, leading the Falcons to the state playoffs for the first time since 2012 and winning their first pennant in football since 2015.
Redman just completed the fourth year of his second stint with the Falcons. He also coached here in Avon in 1995-98 along with two years at Gilbert School in Winsted (1986-87). Most of his coaching career was at Conard where he was a defensive coordinator under long-time head coach Rob Cerosimo and then Cermosimo’s son, Matt.
Jerger is the 19th Avon High football player to receive a Scholar Athlete award from the chapter since 1968. Redman is the second Avon High coach to be recognized as Coach of the Year by the chapter. Brett Quinion was honored in 2012.
Previous Avon High Scholar Athletes
1968 – Dennis Daly
1971 – Craig Lister
1974 – Marc Galiette
1984 – Scott Sadowsky
1987 – Michael Jud
1997 – Scott Gunn
1998 – Ian McNeill
1999 – Jon Hierl
2002 – Brendan Roche
2003 – Daniel Jamieson
2004 – Derek Kon
2008 – Mike D’Onofrio
2011 – Colin Pavano
2012 – Colin Moore and Chris Suttmeir
2015 – Harrison Gill
2018 – Ryan Ollestad
2019 – Henry Schrecengost
2022 – Nils Jerger
