Former Notre Dame football player speaks at award banquet

Ryan Bergman and Sarah Sinclair were named Male and Female athletes of year for Rocklin High at Saturday night?s fourth annual ?Excellence in Athletics? banquet at the Sunset Community Center in Rocklin.Bergman starred in track and field, wrestling and football for the Thunder. Sinclair was a leader in swimming and water polo.Earlier in the evening, Rudy Ruettiger, a former Notre Dame football player whose story was depicted in the film ?Rudy,? gave the keynote speech. He grabbed the audience?s attention by attempting to lead sing-alongs in ?Acunamatada? and Barney?s ?I Love You.?His speech to the students, staff, family and friends focused on the importance of a good attitude in life.?What you think and how you look at life is what you become,? Ruettiger said. ?What you dream does come true and dreams come from the people you?re around and the people who influence you. Failure is part of your success; when you fail it builds character. A good attitude creates good things and a bad attitude creates bad things.?Bergman was named male athlete of the year out of a group that included B.J. McKay, Ryan Angel and Chad Pruett. For the girls, Sinclair beat out Janis Cannon, Kelli Costello, Kristin Nichols, Sabrina Schenck and Roxanne Sechler.There were 19 athletes were nominated into the Rocklin High Hall of Fame: Angel; Bergman; Brett Burns; Kim Cheshier; Morgan Clanton; Costello; Jared Elarmo; Kevin Gilfillan; Jen Hogans; McKay; Adriana Miller; Nichols; Brandon Oliver; Liz Parsley; Jason Peterson; Stephen Reding; Schenck; Sinclair and Klay Williams.Rocklin also honored 12 athletes who will receive money towards college. They include Steve Alexander (Santa Clara-baseball); Angel (San Jose-baseball); Costello (CSU Stanislaus-volleyball); Nichols (University of San Francisco-golf); Oliver (UC Davis-baseball); Schenck (CSU Humboldt-softball); Hogans (CSU Chico-soccer) and Bergman (CSU Bakersfield-wrestling) all received athletic scholarships.Schenck is the first softball player from Rocklin to receive a scholarship.Lindsey Baker, Costello, Cannon, Miller, Nichols and Sinclair all were honored for the $500 women in sports scholarships they received.The U.S. Marine Corps named Riley O?Hagan, Ivan Tidwell and Sechler as Distinguished Athletes. Baker and Ben Eaton were named Army Reserve National Scholar Athletes.CIF ?Spirit of Sport? awards were given to Pruett; Cara O?Hagan; Cristina Bolstad; Areilla Sneh; Meggie O?Hagan; Kevin Gifford; Tidwell; Aaron Ford; Jennifer Vadon; Charley Shields; Costello; Bergman; Doug Noe; Paul Riemer; Mike Murray and Jenna Painter.The event honored the 727 athletes that played at Rocklin this year. There were 82 athletes who had at least a 4.0 grade point average. The overall average for all teams was 3.24. There were 229 varsity athletes honored by the state as Scholar Athletes, owning a 3.5 GPA or better.Pruett was the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Scholar Athlete and Nichols was a nominee. Pruett was also honored by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame for scholastics.Many coaches were also honored at the banquet. Greg Benzel (football), Steve Taylor (boys basketball) and Roc Murray (baseball) were honored for 10 years of service at Rocklin High, which has been around 10 years.Coach Bruce Pearson was honored for being the California Teacher?s association coach of the year for wrestling.The Rhythm in Blue Dance and Drill team was singled out for outstanding team GPA (3.7) and each sport had a sportsman of the year.The sportsmen were Scott Robb; Nic Edmondson (baseball); Angel; Shawna Castle (basketball); Casey Rausch (cheer); Gabby Sneh; Bolstad (cross country); Cynden Wen (drill); Gifford (football); Colin O?Rourke; Kyla Willard (golf); Mike Letson; Melanie McElhatton (soccer); Leslie Carroll (softball); Ryan Toohey; Krista Cook (swimming); Daniel Johnson; Meggie O?Hagan (tennis); Mike McDonald; Ashley King (track); Jared Callis; Julie Strand (volleyball); Toohey; Jessyka O?Neil (water polo) and Ford (wrestling).