VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Courtesy: Natowich Family

Brattleboro

Coach- Football-Baseball

Inducted 2024

A longtime football and baseball coach winning multiple state championships in both, Andy Natowich spent his entire coaching career at Brattleboro Union High School, and was one of the top coaches of his era in southern Vermont.

His football teams won state championships in 1950, 1957, and 1965, and he had a record of 113-53-3, with the 1953 and 1965 Colonels going undefeated. His baseball teams won state titles in 1951, 1956, and 1961, and were state finalists in 1957, 1958, and 1960, going 201-158 in 24 seasons.

Many of his high school players went on to play collegiately, several at the Division I level, with a few of his baseball players signing contracts to play in the minor leagues.

Natowich began his long career as a teacher and a coach at Brattleboro High in 1945. In addition, he also supervised the renovation of the high school baseball field in 1953 as well as its football field in 1965. He later organized the group to raise funds to install lights in 1989. The Brattleboro football field is named in his honor.

He was also active in athletics in the community, helping build the sports complex in Fort Dummer, and many of the youth sports fields in the Brattleboro area.  

Natowich was an outstanding three-sport athlete at Ansonia (Conn.) High and at the College of the Holy Cross (class of 1938). He was an All-American on the gridiron for the Crusaders, and after serving his country in World War II, he played a season with the NFL’s Washington Redskins. With Washington he was the backup quarterback for NFL Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh.

Natowich was inducted into the Holy Cross Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985 and into the VPA Hall of Fame in 2012. He was an inaugural inductee into the new Brattleboro High Hall of Fame in 2021. Inducted with him was his 1965 Colonels state championship football team, the first team to be inducted into Brattleboro's hall. 

Natowich passed away in 2014 at age 95.