SV’s Zach Thatcher Named 2016 National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete

Saucon Valley senior football player Zach Thatcher–who, as quaterback and a team captain helped lead the Panthers to the PIAA semifinals in December–was named  the 2016 Scholar-Athlete award winner by the Lehigh Valley chapter of the National Football Foundation at a dinner in Northampton Sunday night.

“Student athletes from 34 high schools and six colleges were represented, and Zach was chosen as the 2016 winner,” Saucon Valley Athletic Director Bob Frey reported.

“Zach joins John Killar (1991), Joe Killar (1996) and Chris McKeown (2004) as Saucon Valley’s winners of the National Football Scholar Athlete Award since it began in 1961,” he said in an email.

Thatcher is a member of the National Honor Society, is ranked 22nd in his class of 186, and volunteers with the Hellertown American Legion in addition to being active in his church and assisting with youth football, Lehigh Valley Live reported in an article about the banquet.

He plans to study engineering and is considering attending Widener University, where his classmate and team co-captain Christian Carvis is also headed, it said.