Congrats to our UChoose Student-Athlete of the Week:
Jawaun Johnson, Norwich Free Academy

December 1, 2014

Photo courtesy NFA

Jawaun Johnson, a sophomore quarterback, from Norwich Free Academy, has been voted our ninth UChoose Student-Athlete of the Week of the fall!

Jawaun ran for 303 yards and seven touchdowns as NFA outscored New London 63-40 Thanksgiving Day in a game seen LIVE on CPTV Sports — our #UChoose game chosen in a statewide vote of fans (highlights above). The victory gave NFA (7-2) the ECC Large Division title and a berth in the Class LL-Large state tournament. The Wildcats will host New Britain Saturday Dec. at 2:30pm.

From the NFA-New London game story by the Norwich Bulletin’s Owen Poole:

[NFA coach Jemal] Davis was intrigued by Johnson as a freshman, so much so that the coach elected for spring football, something NFA hasn’t done in the past, to get him as many reps as possible.

“We saw glimpses of greatness, really,” Davis said. “He would do some things out there and (the coaches) would just be like, ‘Wow.’ As he began to learn the signals and concepts which we run our run game from, we knew we he was going to be very talented. We threw it all at him and the whole rationale was he’s going to have three years to get it. If he messes up some, so be it. He’s actually picked it up much better than I thought he would.”

Congrats to Jawaun, who joins Fairfield Warde girls soccer player Taylor Gabrenas, Cheshire girls volleyball player Jillian Haberli, Torrington boys soccer player Kevin Vaca, Cheney Tech-Manchester quarterback Rafael Lebron, Maloney-Meriden soccer player Ricardo Lopez, Danbury boys soccer goalie Ian Shannon, Northwest Catholic-West Hartford running back Delano Robinson and Derby’s Ben Slowik as our UChoose honorees this fall.

Click here on our guidelines for the award, which is determined in an online vote starting Saturday night and ending Monday at noon. Be on the lookout for our Thanksgiving week nominees starting Nov. 29!