Jelani Roberts achieved lots of success at Gilman in both track and field and football. In fact, he's done so well at football that the senior will play at Northwestern.
Roberts also has fared just as nicely in the classroom. His success in both areas made him one of five winners at the 52nd Scholar Athlete Awards Dinner Wednesday night at Martin's West.
The event, hosted by the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, gave $4,000 scholarship checks to five athletes from different geographical areas for use at their colleges. There was no overall winner.
In addition to Roberts, the other regional winners were: Liam Butler (Winters Mill), Alexander Plotkin (Archbishop Spalding), Andrew Visconti (Bel Air) and Garrett Wack (Catonsville). Overall, 79 players were nominated for awards.
Roberts played wide receiver for Gilman and was an All-Metro pick last fall. He was a team captain who ranks in the top 5 percent of his class and is looking at studying some form of engineering at college.
"It just means a lot to be honored for both football and academics," Roberts said. "It feels good to have done well in both categories."
Roberts played on the varsity football team for two years, has been on varsity outdoor track for four years and varsity indoor track for two. He is scheduled to report to Northwestern on June 21 for summer workouts. He'll also be taking a few classes over the summer while starting work with the football team.
Butler played quarterback for Winters Mill last fall and is going to be an outfielder and pitcher with the baseball team this spring. He's still undecided about college and is waiting to hear back from a number of schools.
Butler might try to walk-on to the football team at whichever college he winds up, but will spend most of his time concentrating on pre-med studies. He plans to go into orthopaedics, and said this award gave his confidence a boost.
"It was awesome … just to be meeting everyone from all these schools," Butler said. "It lets me know that I can do some great stuff in the future."
On the team side, McDonogh was given the A. Paul Menton Award. That honor annually goes to the top-ranked football team in the Baltimore area, and the Eagles were the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference co-champions thanks to an overtime victory over rival Gilman.
McDonogh finished with a 7-3 record this season after winning the conference's outright title the year before.
In addition, Franklin won the Ben Eaton Sr. Championship Award. The Indians captured a second straight Class 3A state title this year, beating Damascus in the title game.
Franklin ended the season with a 13-1 record and has made it to the state championship game three times in the past five years.
Johns Hopkins football coach Jim Margraff was given a Special Achievement Award after his Blue Jays finished the season 11-1 and made it to the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. He's the all-time winningest college football coach in the state, with a record of 178-83-3 during his 25 years with the Blue Jays.