VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Photo Credit- UVM Ath. Communications

West Barnet

Basketball

Inducted 2020

The state’s top high school player in 2000, Taylor Coppenrath went on to the University of Vermont where he was a three-time Kevin Roberson America East Player of the Year, a three-time All-American and a finalist for the John Wooden Award as national player of the year in 2005.

The 6-foot-9 Coppenrath helped the Catamounts to the program’s first four 20-win seasons, three straight America East titles and the school’s first three trips to the NCAA D-I Men’s Basketball Championship. He was a key part of Vermont’s victory over Big East Champion and national power Syracuse in the first round of the 2005 tournament, one of the legendary first round upsets in the history of ‘March Madness’. 

He scored 2,442 career points, second all-time at UVM, was named all-conference four straight years, and twice won the Reggie Lewis Award as the America East Championship Most Outstanding Player. He ranked fourth in the nation in scoring as a junior (24.1 ppg) and was fifth as a senior (25.1). In addition to being on the Wooden Award final ballot, he was the runner-up for the 2005 Bayer Advantage Senior CLASS Award as the nation's top senior. Three times Coppenrath was named the state’s top athlete by the Vermont Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.

At St. Johnsbury Academy, Coppenrath played on the varsity only as a junior and a senior, and in his final year with the Hilltoppers, he averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds per game and was named the Vermont Player of the Year by Gatorade, USA Today and the Burlington Free Press. 

He was a red-shirt his first year at UVM, then was the 2002 America East Rookie of the Year as the Catamounts won a then school-record 21 games and its first-ever conference regular season title.

After graduating from UVM in 2005, Coppenrath played in the NBA Summer League for the Boston Celtics before embarking on a ten-year successful professional career in Europe before retiring after the 2015 season. He began in the EuroLeague in Greece and finished in Spain where he played on five straight championship teams in the Spanish LEB Gold league. He returned to Vermont and has been  a math teacher.

He is a member of the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame and his number 22 was retired by the school in 2019. Prior to Coppenrath, the number 22 was worn by two other VSHOF inductees, Higgs, his high school coach at St. Johnsbury, and Matt Johnson, who also was UVM’s first conference player of the year.