Jamestown’s Leeper Wins Connolly Cup

BLAISDELL – The 29th Annual William R. Connolly Memorial Cup was awarded to Western New York’s most outstanding high school player on Saturday at Ilio Dipaolo’s Restaurant, but the winner had the honor locked up weeks ago.

Jamestown Aaron Leeper scored four touchdowns in his opening game that was a look of things to come. The senior running back went on to have five four-touchdown games and four more with five touchdowns. And after breaking several state and WNY records en route to leading the Red Raiders to the Class AA state championship last Sunday, Leeper capped his dream season by being awarded the Connolly Cup.

“This caps the whole year,” he said. “It’s a great accomplishment for myself, but I couldn’t do it without the support of my coaches and my family and the blocking of the offensive line. Without them, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get 47 touchdowns, 2,000-whatever yards and the state championship. So I’m not the only one who deserves this award.”

Leeper finished the season with a state record 47 touchdowns and 282 points. He also rushed for 2,276 yards which is a WNY record.

The Connolly Cup criteria includes only performances through the eight regular season games and two more games played in Western New York in the Section 6 playoffs. However, not counting the western regional, state semi-final and state championship games didn’t hurt Leeper. In the 10 previous games, Leeper had 1,837 yards and 40 touchdowns.

As the season continued, Leeper admitted he had thoughts about winning the Heisman Trophy of Western New York football.

“I’d been thinking about it, but I was trying to concentrate on the games we had on hand,” he said. “I thought the most important thing was to win the state championship and we concentrated on that pretty well.”

The Red Raiders locked up the state title, the team’s third in six years, with a 33-7 win over New Rochelle last Sunday night at the Carrier Dome.

Leeper is the third Jamestown player to be awarded the Connolly Cup. Roberto Amoroso won it in 1982 and David Hinson in 1994.

“It’s nice to bring it back to Jamestown,” he said. “We brought he state championship back to Jamestown.”

Many of the records Leeper broke this season had belonged to Hinson. When Hinson won the Connolly Cup in 1994, he also appeared to be the clear-cut winner, but there were some doubts. Coach Wally Huckno said he felt the same way Saturday.

“I had no doubt, but just before the announcement is made you get a few butterflies, a little apprehension,” he said. “I’m going to go back several years and that’s the year (1979) when Sam Restivo didn’t win it and he was clearly the best player in Western New York, so I know things can happen when you vote by secret ballot.

“I know there has been some controversy in the past, so was I 100 percent sure? I wasn’t, but you’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to realize the talents Aaron Leeper had.”

He added, “I think the Riverside Athletic Club does a terrific job with the number games they see (155 and 70 of 90 teams) and they always pick the recipient the way they see it.”

And other coaches would agree with the choice.

Several coaches came to see me including the head of Section 6 football Chuck Funke, and said, “There’s not a finer young man in Western New York,” Huckno said. “That says a lot. There’s a lot of class there and you feel good about youngsters who succeed and who do it in a classy way.”