Arizona High School Football Champions Luncheon

WHO WE ARE

The National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame was established in 1947 and currently has 121 chapters around the United States. Since that time, the NFF quickly became known as the premier organization dedicated to recognizing the importance of amateur football’s positive role in the development of America’s youth. These are tomorrow’s leaders, and if we can help them achieve their goals, we are fulfilling our mission.

Our published Community Report details the many youth based activities in which the Valley of the Sun Chapter is involved.

WHERE WE ARE

- Football is the only high school sport in Arizona that has a recognition event for its State Champions.
- The National Football Foundation has been sponsoring this event for about 25 years and current attendance is 300.
- The recognition Luncheon is held one week after the 5A State Championship games.

We currently honor:
- 7 HS Championship Coaches – one from each division
- 1 Honorary Coach
- 3 Position players
- 1 Spirit Line member
- 1 Band Member

Our attendance groups include:
- High School coaches and coaching staffs from around the state. Many coaches and staffs attend even if they did not win a state championship.
- Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) – A number of people from this state athletic organization attends.
- Junior College coaches have been in attendance at many of the past Luncheons.
- Parents and Booster groups have taken a stronger role in sponsoring tables for coaches, staffs and their membership.
- Sponsoring businesses that support high school athletics.

The event has grown in stature recently due to:

- The current high interest in high school sports and specifically in football.
- Booster groups are starting to attend the Luncheon and support their winning coaches.
- Non-winning schools are starting to attend and be supportive of high school football.
- Other relevant elements of the game, notably Band and Spirit Line recognitions have boosted attendance.
- Strong support from the Arizona Interscholastic Association.

WHERE CAN WE GO

We want to capture this current momentum and grow the event. We can accomplish this by capitalizing on the strength of high school athletics and specifically football.

To do this we visualize our next step as adding the Republic All-State Football players to the event. This would exponentially add to the program just by the sheer numbers alone for attendance. It would also increase the exposure and we could easily double the 300-person attendance.

Our vision for the event would also be more Band and Spirit Line involvement. These students are a very integral part of the high school football experience and their commitment should be recognized.

WHAT WE CAN ACCOMPLISH

Our objective is to recognize as many outstanding high school student athletes as possible for their commitment to personal achievement and advancement.

Major community benefits in recognizing more students would help in:
- Lowering high school dropout rates (currently 40% in Arizona)
- Enrolling more students in continuing education i.e., Junior Colleges or Universities. (currently 10% of high school freshmen graduate from a university)