John Blanchard, a native of Sacramento, earned 2nd team All-City honors as a senior at Christian Brothers High, the year in which CB claimed its first-ever Metro League football title. He was recently inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Blanchard earned a scholarship in football at Stanford where he played strong safety and free safety from 1971 -1974. In 1974 when Stanford finished 2nd in the Pac-8, Blanchard led the team in minutes played, and led defensive backs in tackles with 72, and had 3 interceptions. Following his senior year, Blanchard was voted 1st Team All-West Coast (UPI) and 2nd Team All-Pac-8.

Blanchard earned a bachelor’s degree in History, from Stanford in 1975 and a master’s degree in social work from San Diego State University in 1981.

For 28 years, Blanchard worked in college athletics most recently as a Senior Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Services for the University of North Carolina. In that capacity, he created the first leadership academy in college athletics, the Richard A. Baddour Carolina Leadership Academy

For the past nine years, Blanchard has worked as a leadership development consultant for the Pittsburgh Pirates.