Dillan Fontus ready to lead Maryland football's defense, talks Community & Impact Award

Oliver Schaack
Apr 12
3 min read

Dillon Fontus’ name gained a new honor this week after being awarded the inaugural Big Ten Jackie Robinson Community & Impact Award.

Fontus accepted the award from Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti this past Tuesday at a team meeting with his mother, Delsina, along with granddaughter of Jackson Robinson, Sonya Pankey Robinson.

“What does that mean to me? It’s gratitude,” Fontus said after practice on Tuesday evening at media availability. “I’m so grateful for people even look at me in the light of someone who can embody someone of such great stature, like very known figure, not only known, but he’s done so many great things in the community outside of just sports.”

Fontus continued to say that he’s grateful to have his name attached to an honor like this to be recognized for his off-to-field efforts along with his on-the-field efforts for the Terrapins.

The award is given to a male and female athlete within the conference whose significant community service contributions align with Jackie Robinson's legacy of courage, determination, teamwork, persistence, integrity, citizenship, justice, commitment, and excellence.

There were 36 nominees for the honor, with all 18 universities in the conference being rewarded two nominees each for the prestigious honor in its first year. The other nominee for Maryland was Tasha Brozowski, a Senior gymnast from North Carolina.

Fontus just completed his sophomore year this past season and made an appearance in all 12 games for the Terrapins, recording nine total tackles and a blocked field goal. Originally from New York, Fontus was the third highest ranked player in his class out of the state.

With the ever-changing landscape of college athletics in the modern day, veteran guys like Fontus are tasked with instilling the culture for Maryland football with countless transfer pickups along with incoming freshmen, which he says is strong in College Park.

“We have a culture and standards. It’s toughness, effort, and standards. It’s toughness, effort…and whether the players are new or whether they’ve been here for five years, we do a great job installing anybody who’s coming through these doors, and we do a great job in just continuing to instill those things in not only our game, just the things we live our lives, man. So like being a turtle, whether you’re new or old, is going to be something that’s not hard to do.”

Fontus also gave props to incoming freshman phenom Malik Washington, a four-star quarterback who enrolled early this spring to acclimate himself in the system he’ll soon run.

“He’s [Malik] really good at feeling where the pressure is coming from. Not only that, he’s an explosive player. So he’ll be looking on one side of the field and then zips the ball to the other side. He’s very aware for the experience, like he doesn’t have much experience on a college field yet, but he has a lot of ball under his belt.”

Maryland is coming off a disappointing 4-8 season in 2024. Head Coach Mike Locksley led the Terps to three consecutive bowl games in the previous three seasons for the first time in program history. They will kick off the 2025 season on August 30th at SECU Stadium against Florida Atlantic.

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