NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT – In addition to overseeing the selection of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious All-America Team – a tradition established by Walter Camp in 1889 – the Walter Camp Football Foundation annually recognizes individuals whose achievements and service have made a lasting impact on their communities. The Foundation has announced that Robert L. Berchem will receive the 2026 Walter Camp Champion of Community Award at the Walter Camp Ring of Honor Event, to be held on the evening of July 12 at Race Brook Country Club in Orange, Connecticut.
Berchem will join the list of other notable recipients of a major award from the Foundation that did not play the game of football, but distinguished themselves in their professional and personal lives in a way that made them worthy of being a Walter Camp major award winner such as: Pete Rozelle (1969), Bob Hope (1985), Susan Saint James (1991), Paul Tagliabue (1994), Arthur Blank (2005), Dick Ebersol (1996), Regis Philbin (2002), Robin Roberts (2009), Verne Lundquist (2014), Tim Shriver (2015), and Chris Berman (2019).
Robert Berchem is a graduate of Fairfield University and was valedictorian of the Villanova University School of Law in 1965. He went on to clerk for the Chief Justice of the United States District Court, Hon. William Timbers, and then was awarded a fellowship where he obtained a Master of Law from the University of Michigan Law School in 1967. Berchem’s long and distinguished legal career includes founding one of Connecticut’s largest and most successful law firms, Berchem Moses PC. He has been actively involved in the attraction, development, and construction of many of the retail, commercial and industrial projects which, over the past five decades, have enabled the region to maintain a strong tax base and enhance its economic stability. Berchem’s charitable work is noteworthy having served as Chair of the Bridgeport University Board of Trustees, Trustee for Fairfield University, President of Race Brook Country Club, and Board of Director of Boys and Girl’s Village and the Cardinal Sheehan Center. He is a significant supporter of countless other worthy charitable organizations in the community.
The Champion of Community Award reflects the values that Walter Camp championed throughout his life—leadership, integrity, selflessness, teamwork, and service to others. It recognizes individuals who have achieved distinction in business, public service, or private life while making meaningful contributions to their communities and charitable causes. The recipient need not have participated in football but must be one who understands its lesson of self-denial, cooperation and teamwork, and who is a person of honesty, integrity and dedication.
About the Walter Camp Football Foundation
Considered the “Father of American Football,” Walter Camp introduced the play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side in 1880. Nine years later, Mr. Camp, then the Yale University head coach, selected the first-ever college football All-America team. The Walter Camp Football Foundation – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team. Visit www.waltercamp.org for more information.
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