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The first time University of �������� women’s soccer coach Scott Atherley watched Addison LaBonte compete, she wasn’t playing soccer.

She was diving across a basketball court.

Atherley had traveled to the Cumberland County Civic Center during LaBonte’s senior year at York High School to evaluate the future Black Bear athlete. What stood out wasn’t her speed or finesse. It was the grit.

“She was always in the middle of a play,” Atherley recalled. “She was willing to do the dirty work — diving on the floor, fighting for rebounds, doing whatever it took for her team to win. You could see her competitiveness and leadership immediately.”

That same mentality would later define LaBonte’s career far beyond the soccer field.

Today, the 2016 U�������� graduate is the founder of Sweet Addison’s, a fast-growing gourmet dessert company specializing in gourmet gluten-free and dairy-free baked goods shipped nationwide. The company’s cookies and desserts have quickly gained traction online and through wholesale partnerships, fueled by LaBonte’s mission to create treats that feel indulgent while still being made with ingredients she feels good about eating. 

What began as recipe testing in a 700-square-foot Dallas apartment has become a multi-seven-figure business with six employees and products sold in dozens of coffee shops, hotels and specialty stores across the country.

But long before LaBonte was scaling a national food brand, she was a shy freshman walk-on from York trying to prove she belonged at U��������.

“I had just turned 18. I was homesick. I was timid. I felt so far outside my comfort zone,” LaBonte said. “Fast forward four years, and I was so much more confident and outgoing. The University of �������� transformed me.”

LaBonte grew up in a family deeply connected to U��������. Her father, Richard LaBonte, played football for the Black Bears in the early 1980s. Her mother, Robin, also attended U��������, where the two met as students. Her younger sister, Delaney, later played soccer for the Black Bears, and her brother, Trevor, played baseball at �������� during a postgraduate season after transferring from the University of Maryland. 

“We are obsessed with the University of ��������,” LaBonte said with a laugh.

At U��������, LaBonte majored in mathematics, minored in business administration and earned an Honors College degree. All while competing for the women’s soccer team. 

But her path onto the field was anything but guaranteed.

Atherley recruited LaBonte as a walk-on after seeing her athleticism and determination translate from basketball to soccer. He remembered her as disciplined, analytical and intensely competitive from the start.

“She was very clear about who she was,” Atherley said. “She was regimented, organized and always looking to solve problems. You could already see the traits that would later make her successful in business.”

During her first two seasons, LaBonte fought for playing time on a highly successful Black Bear team. Then came a turning point.

Early in one season, U�������� scheduled an exhibition against Harvard, giving Atherley an opportunity to play athletes who had not seen much game action.

“We started her against Harvard and she was arguably the best player on the field,” he said. “From that moment forward, she never looked back.”

LaBonte eventually earned a scholarship and became a mainstay in ��������’s lineup, starting 16 games in 2013 and all 18 games in 2014 while helping anchor one of the America East Conference’s top defenses.

“She wasn’t the fastest player on the field,” Atherley said. “But if you rolled a ball between her and someone else and said, ‘Go win it,’ she’d win the race every time.”

That relentless mentality followed LaBonte after graduation.

After earning her degree in 2016, she returned home to York and began working in finance and data analysis, believing she would build a traditional career in business. But the work left her unfulfilled.

At the same time, she began dealing with health issues and eventually adopted a gluten-free lifestyle.

“I couldn’t find desserts that tasted indulgent but were still made with quality ingredients,” LaBonte said. “It always felt like you had to choose between healthy and delicious.”

She began experimenting in the kitchen, drawing on years spent baking with her mother and grandmother. Around the same time, she launched an Instagram account called Organically Addison, where she shared gluten-free recipes, wellness content and training updates from her growing passion for distance running.

The audience exploded.

Today, LaBonte has more than 300,000 followers across her online platforms, operates multiple food and wellness websites and hosts the Organically Addison podcast, where she interviews entrepreneurs and health and wellness experts. Before launching Sweet Addison’s, she built a full-time career as a content creator focused on gluten-free recipes, wellness and healthy living.

Still, she wanted something more tangible.

In 2021, LaBonte made another leap, moving alone from �������� to Dallas.

“I didn’t know a single person in Texas,” she said. “My dad drove me out there, and I just decided to take a chance on myself.”

While working remotely and continuing to grow her online audience, followers began asking whether they could purchase the desserts she baked at home.

That demand became the foundation for Sweet Addison’s.

LaBonte launched the company in early 2024 with a single product: chocolate chip cookies. She tested the recipe 26 different times before landing on the final version.

“I remember thinking, ‘If these cookies can survive shipping from Texas to ��������, then maybe I have a real business,’” she said.

The company quickly took off.

Sweet Addison’s now ships nationwide and has been featured by TODAY.com, OK! Magazine’s “The Morning Honey,” NBC Dallas-Fort Worth and multiple podcasts and digital publications. The brand has resonated with customers looking for desserts that are both gluten-free and dairy-free without sacrificing the rich, indulgent flavors of traditional baked goods.

The rapid growth has been exhilarating. And exhausting.

“What we do in a daily average now is what we did in an entire month during the first year,” LaBonte said. “Some days it feels like I’m building the plane while flying it.”

Her operation has expanded from apartment baking to a commercial kitchen and fulfillment facility in Dallas. The business now employs six people and continues growing its wholesale footprint.

One of LaBonte’s major goals for the coming year is expanding into more retailers in ��������.

“�������� will always feel like home to me,” she said.

Even as her business has grown, LaBonte said the lessons she learned as a Division I athlete remain central to her success.

“The biggest thing soccer taught me was discipline,” she said. “Being a Division I athlete teaches you delayed gratification. You work for months and months hoping it pays off later, and there are no guarantees.”

That mindset now shapes everything from her business operations to her personal life.

LaBonte runs marathons and completed her first ultramarathon — a 50-kilometer race in Dallas — last year. She hopes to tackle a 50-mile race next.

“I like to push myself to the extreme and then figure it out,” she said.

Her daily schedule remains meticulously organized, often planned hour by hour.

“I don’t watch TV and I don’t drink alcohol,” she said. “I just genuinely love what I do.”

Atherley sees clear parallels between the determined walk-on he coached in Orono and the entrepreneur leading a rapidly growing company today.

“She took her opportunity and ran with it and never looked back,” he said. “She’s one of the most determined people I’ve ever coached.”

He also remembers the early version of LaBonte before the gluten-free recipes, ultramarathons and food brand.

“When she first got here, she loved hamburgers, bacon and ketchup,” Atherley said, laughing. “Now she’s transformed her lifestyle completely. But the one thing that never changed is how driven she is.”

For LaBonte, U�������� remains at the center of that story.

She still talks regularly with former teammates, stays close with fellow alumni and hopes to return to Orono this fall for a soccer game.

What she remembers most is the sense of community.

“The University of �������� did such a great job of making a big campus feel small,” she said. “The whole town revolves around the university and everyone supports each other. There’s just something special about that place.”

And when Atherley thinks back to that first basketball game years ago — the one where a future entrepreneur kept throwing herself into loose balls and fighting for rebounds — he sees the same person he sees today.

Competitive. Disciplined. Fearless.

A walk-on who built herself into something bigger.

And a ��������r who never stopped chasing the next challenge.

Contact: David Nordman, david.nordman@maine.edu