Springfield High School graduate Mike Brown recently received a prestigious honor by making the list of the top 70 influencers in the sphere of Name, Image and Likeness for college athletes.
Silver Waves conducted exhaustive research to compile the list of those who have shaped the landscape of collegiate sports and athletic endorsements.
Brown founded his business Hoop Culture in 2010 and has built it into a globally recognized basketball lifestyle brand.
Hoop Culture offers lifestyle apparel and custom team uniforms. It is well known for its very distinctive basketball backpacks. This brand has sold in more than 85 nations.
Brown earned his spot on the prestigious NIL list through partnerships, influencers and organizations including collaborations with Division I universities and with high-level influencers and athletes.
And to think that this love for basketball all began in Springfield, specifically at the Springfield Community Center long before high school.
Everyone has heard the stories about how the Springfield Community Center was the introduction to hoops for so many who went on to embrace the game.
Brown took it far. He was a 1,000-point scorer in high school, playing two years at Green Mountain Union High School and the final two at Springfield for coach Mike Hatt.
He also had a great college career between Lyndon State and Green Mountain College. Brown sparkled in the college classroom as well. Between Lyndon and Green Mountain, he had a stint at Southern Maine Community College — where he received the IBM Business Award. A professor told Brown that he earned the honor because he applied the same work ethic in the classroom that he had displayed on the basketball court.
Brown eventually moved to Florida for the warmer weather and he loves being in the business world.
Green Mountain College coach Matt Dempsey stressed that while Brown was a tremendous 3-point shooter, he was also outstanding at finding the open man as a point guard.
The assist — or the equivalent of it away from basketball, which is helping others — has taken Brown far. He helps college athletes achieve goals and that is what brings him joy and success.
And it has just landed him on a very exclusive list.
CAPTAINS
The Husson University football staff not only recruits Vermont in great numbers, they also find the Green Mountain Staters to be leaders. Two of the four captains for the 2025 team are Vermonters — Bellows Falls’ Jed Lober and Hartford’s Brayden Trombly.
Lober is a senior and was the Eagles’ top running back last fall with 868 rushing yards and nine touchdowns.
Trombly was a game-changer as a defensive back with 75 tackles and two pass interceptions.
Notably, Trombly is a sophomore captain. That is a rarity that speaks to his leadership qualities and quick adjustment to the college game and setting.
Another captain out of Vermont is Springfield High graduate Ari Cioffi. She is a senior this year at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine and captain of the swim team.
An outstanding athlete at Springfield, she also competed in swimming for the Connecticut River Valley Stingrays.
THE BEGINNING
The weather on Sept. 5, 2009 around here was gorgeous.
How do you remember what the weather was like on a specific day that long ago? There were about 5,000 people on the Castleton campus that remember it vividly.
That was the day of the first football game in the history of the college. The governor was there, many bands were spread among a vibrant tailgating scene and people were getting ready for something many believed would never happen — Castleton football.
It is a scene that former Castleton football players Tucker Gaudette and Jake McCarthy will experience on Sept. 6.
New England College will play it first varsity football game that day by hosting state rival Plymouth State. Gaudette and McCarthy are graduate assistant coaches on the NEC staff.
Gaudette, a BFA-St. Albans product and the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference Offensive Lineman of the Year in 2022, is working with the line and McCarthy with the wide receivers.
Vermont artist Peter Huntoon captured that day on Sept. 5, 2009 at the stadium that would later be named for his brother-in-law Dave Wolk. Huntoon’s painting is hanging in numerous businesses and homes throughout the area as well as in the Hall of Fame Room at Vermont State University Castleton.
FOR KICKS
Former Shoreham resident Ryan Boutwell graduated from NCAA Division III Gustavus Adolphus in 1999. Twenty six years later, he still holds kicking records for the Golden Gusties who have been playing football for well over 100 years.
Boutwell holds the record at the Minnesota college for most points by a kicker (200) and most career field goals with 34. One season he converted 13 of his 18 field goal attempts.
LANPHER MOVING
Steve Lanpher is well known in the Vermont basketball community with coaching stints in places like West Rutland, Rochester, College of St. Joseph, Norwich University and the University of Vermont.
He will have a new basketball address this season. Lanpher took a job this month as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Cleveland State after a successful tenure as the women’s head coach at Division III Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Lanpher has been friends for a number of years with Cleveland State head coach Chris Kielsmeier.
“I felt I had reached the ceiling at Randolph and felt it was time to give Division I more ride,” Lanpher said.
Lanpher is headed to a winning program. The Vikings were 29-6 last year and 18-2 as champions of the Horizon League.
SHRINE DATA
Since New Hampshire ruled that its players could only play in one of its two All-Star games (the East-West CHaD Game or the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl), Vermont has a 6-4 edge in the Maple Sugar Bowl football game, the summer high school all-star game that has been around since 1954.