Danbury senior quarterback Patrick Rosetti has been selected by the CIAC as the Michael H. Savage Spirit of Sport winner for the state of Connecticut this year.
The award is given to an athlete who demonstrates exemplary sportsmanship or citizenship in playing the game as it be played, has exceeded normal expectations in assisting others within the school community or has overcome adversity or a challenging circumstance.
Rosetti suffers from a severe impediment, which makes communicating with students, teachers, coaches and teammates very hard, especially since he plays the most important position on the football field, quarterback.
“That’s what makes him awesome,” Danbury coach Augie Tieri said last year in a GameTimeCT story about Rosetti. “He’s never allowed it to be a handicap or given someone else the opportunity to ridicule. He’s a dude in every aspect of his life; he’s the man academically, he’s a man on the field and he has a lot of friends.”
Last season Rosetti split time under center with Jackson Ciccone. When Ciccone was injured against Norwalk, Rosetti stepped in and had the best game of his career, tossing three touchdowns to lead Danbury to a come from behind 37-33 win. Rosetti hit Bernie Delacruz with the game-winning touchdown with 1:58 left.
He finished his junior year with 13 touchdown passes and 1,256 yards.
Off the field Rosetti has a 4.5 weighted GPA and scored a 1,330 on his SATs.
Rosetti has never seen his speech impediment as an issue, he said that he believes that because of it he has learned more.
“I feel like having a speech impediment actually improved my ability to learn language due to how much thought I have to put into the words I say,” Rosetti said last year.
Rosetti also uses music as an outlet and he has the ability to rap any song, without his speech impediment interfering.
“Every time I’m feeling down about it I just put in my earbuds and I’m able to enjoy music,” Rosetti said.
When GameTimeCT did the story on him a year ago, Rosetti said he wanted to do the story and be in front of the camera because he wanted to show anyone that also has a speech impediment that they can do anything they want.
Rosetti’s selection nominates him for the National Spirit of Sport Award.
