Indianapolis Colts LB-Shaquille Leonard Named Recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award

Indianapolis Colts linebacker Shaquille Leonard has been chosen by his teammates because the recipient of the 2022 Ed Block Braveness Award.

The award is an annual recognition for brave play by a person, and Leonard is one among 32 Nationwide Soccer League gamers who earned the accolade. The gamers of every member membership nominate a person yearly and people chosen are historically honored at a banquet in Baltimore.

“To be chosen by my teammates for this distinguished honor is a blessing,” mentioned Leonard. “As NFL gamers, we have now a platform to make an impression within the communities that we characterize. I take nice pleasure in being a servant chief and provoking the youth in Indianapolis and my hometown of Lake View, South Carolina.”

Leonard is a four-time All-Professional selection (First Staff in 2018, 2020 and 2021; Second Staff in 2019). He has been named to a few consecutive Professional Bowls (2019-21). Leonard has performed in 61 common season video games (59 begins) and has totaled 549 tackles (351 solo), 30.0 tackles for loss, 15.0 sacks, 12 interceptions (one returned for a landing), 31 passes defensed, 17 compelled fumbles and 7 fumble recoveries. He was initially chosen by Indianapolis within the second spherical (thirty sixth total) of the 2018 NFL Draft.

Since coming into the NFL in 2018, Leonard ranks on the high of the league in quite a few defensive classes amongst linebackers, together with complete tackles (eighth), solo tackles (ninth), interceptions (first), compelled fumbles (second) and 10-tackle video games (25, fourth). He registered 100 complete tackles in every of his first 4 seasons within the NFL. Since 1985, Leonard is simply the fifth participant in franchise historical past to perform that feat and solely the second participant to take action of their first 4 seasons within the league.

Locally, Leonard has devoted himself to giving again to his hometown of Lake View, S.C. and Indianapolis. In 2022, he donated $38,484 to renovate Hilltop Park in Lake View, and hosted a soccer camp for 200 children on the park. To kick off the brand new college 12 months, Leonard did a backpack giveaway that benefited round 380 college students at Lake View Elementary. At Lake View Excessive College, he donated $56,500 to enhance the soccer subject. Leonard additionally contributed $3,511 in direction of Coats for Youngsters and supplied $3,500 in Thanksgiving turkeys for his hometown.

In 2020, Leonard and his spouse, Kayla, launched the Maniac Basis, which is devoted to reworking communities by means of training, wellness packages, serving households in want and different charitable causes. His deep data of the Lake View and Indianapolis communities, and the individuals who make up these communities has allowed the Maniac Basis to have an in depth attain.

In its first 12 months, the Maniac Basis supplied over $100,000 in grants, academic supplies and assets to the Lake View and Indianapolis communities. At their inaugural occasion, they raised over $680,000, which went on to packages and initiatives all through the Lake View and Indianapolis communities that help the Maniac Basis’s mission assertion.

Leonard is an outspoken advocate for the Irsay household and Colts’ “Kicking the Stigma” initiative, which is devoted to elevating consciousness about psychological well being problems and to take away the disgrace and stigma too usually related to these sicknesses. He shares his personal psychological well being experiences in movies, PSAs and roundtable discussions. Leonard launched a psychological well being hotline by means of the Maniac Basis in April 2022 that gives a month-to-month motivational message from Leonard and available assets to these dealing with psychological well being challenges.

The award is called after Ed Block who was the top athletic coach for the Baltimore Colts from 1954-77. He served as coach emeritus with the membership till he handed away in 1983.

Previous winners of the award courting again to 2000, embrace: WR-T.Y. Hilton (2021), P-Rigoberto Sanchez (2020), DE-Jabaal Sheard (2019), TE-Jack Doyle (2018), S-Clayton Geathers (2017), QB-Andrew Luck (2016), G/T-Joe Reitz (2015), TE-Dwayne Allen (2014), DE-Cory Redding (2013), S-Antoine Bethea (2012), DE-Robert Mathis (2011), DE-Dwight Freeney (2010), DB-Marlin Jackson (2009), C-Jeff Saturday (2008), OG-Ryan Lilja (2007), WR-Reggie Wayne (2006), LB-Cato June (2005), LB-Gary Brackett (2004), DE-Chad Bratzke (2003), LB-Rob Morris (2002), QB-Peyton Manning (2001) and DT-Bernard Whittington (2000).

The forty fifth annual Ed Block Braveness Awards is scheduled for April 1-2, 2023, on the Renaissance Lodge in Baltimore. Proceeds from the affair profit the Ed Block Braveness Award Basis in Baltimore. The Ed Block Braveness Award Basis’s goal is to ascertain houses for abused youngsters in every NFL metropolis. Indianapolis established an Ed Block Braveness house (Kids’s Bureau) in October of 2000. The house is a part of a nationwide help community for abused youngsters.