By Andy Nesbitt, Globe Staff, 5/16/2004

Reading High's Chris Pizzotti has never shied away from the comparisons between him and his brothers, Dave and Steve. As his older brothers did, Chris played quarterback for the Rockets, and did quite well. And just as Dave and Steve earned a spot on the Globe All-Scholastic team, so did Chris.

On Monday, Chris joined his brothers on another prestigious list -- as a recipient of a Scholar-Athlete Award from the Eastern Massachusetts chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame.

The award, given to 22 football players who excelled in both the classroom and on the gridiron, put the final touch on Pizzotti's high school career. It also ensured the senior a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame, located on the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Ind., where a plaque honoring this year's group will hang with the others.

My brothers "never mentioned anything about the award," Pizzotti said. "But I wanted to do the same thing as they did and follow in their footsteps one more time.

"It was a nice award to win because it's a combination of football and academics. It's nice to be recognized for what you do in school and in football."

While Pizzotti will never again throw a pass in a Reading uniform, his football career will continue. A highly sought-after talent who possesses a powerful right arm that college coaches drool over, Pizzotti this fall will make the short move to Cambridge, where he will attend and play football at Harvard.

Pizzotti had a few Division 1 and Division 1-AA schools interested in signing him to a scholarship, but the lure of a Harvard education as well as playing football for the storied program was too much to pass up.

"It was pretty much Harvard all along," he said of the recruiting process. "I found the academics there to be intriguing, and when I was accepted early [mid-December], I really didn't have to worry about anything."

In his final season as the director of Reading's high-powered offense, the 6-foot, 5-inch Pizzotti threw for over 1,700 yards and 19 touchdowns, upping his career numbers to 3,300 yards and 40 touchdowns. He was named the Middlesex League's Offensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive year , and his team, which finished 8-2, narrowly missed out on a postseason berth.

Pizzotti's offseason training schedule has already kicked in to high gear; he hopes to polish his skills before heading to Harvard's preseason camp at the end of the summer. As he did last spring, Pizzotti is working out with a strength and conditioning coach five days a week. He's also throwing a football each day with his replacement at Reading, Mike O'Brien.

Pizzotti spent his first two springs in high school pitching for the Reading High baseball team. But as he became more accomplished on the football field, he decided to drop the sport and focus solely on football. He admitted, however, that earlier this year he thought about playing baseball one last season, when he probably would have been one of the league's top pitchers.

"Toward the end of football season, I thought about playing baseball again," he said. "I thought it would be a great way to kind of end my high school career. But then when I heard from Harvard I thought it would be best for me to just focus on football."

Pizzotti will spend his first season with the Crimson serving as an apprentice to their returning starting quarterback, senior Ryan Fitzpatrick. That's just fine with him. All Pizzotti wants to do is work hard in practice and begin to understand what it will take to become a successful signal caller at the college level.

"I'm really excited to go to the next step and see where I stand," he said.

This story ran on page S14 of the Boston Globe on 5/16/2004.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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