Andrew Wiggins is Gatorade’s High School Player of the Year
Andrew Wiggins is on his way to becoming a household name, and winning the Gatorade High School Player of the Year Award is another big milestone in that journey. I was on hand in Los Angeles last night for the awards ceremony at the W Hotel in Hollywood as Wiggins picked up his trophy and Morgan Andrews picked up the award for best female athlete.
Gatorade has been handing out these awards since 1985, and past winners sound like a who’s who of sports superstars with names like Emmitt Smith and Peyton Manning. Last year we were on hand when Breanna Stewart picked up the award for female athlete, and she promptly went on to win a National Championship with UConn in woman’s basketball. This years winner for girls basketball, Morgan Andrews, is going to Tennessee and it will be fun to watch her potentially challenge Stewart and the Huskies for basketball supremacy. Here are all of the impressive winners:
GIRLS
Lauren Carlini Volleyball
Sarah Baxter Cross Country
Mercedes Russell Basketball
Morgan Andrews Soccer
Carley Hoover Softball
Kendell Williams Track & Field
BOYS
Max Browne Football
Edward Cheserek Cross Country
Andrew Wiggins Basketball
Cristian Roldan Soccer
Clint Frazier Baseball
Trayvon Bromell Track & Field
We spoke with many of the athletes and came away impressed with all of them. As a Cleveland Indians fan I had already heard about Clint Frazier, this year’s #1 draft pick for the Indians. Frazier has tremendous power and is considered by many scouts to be a 5-tool player. He’s already started his pro career and he’s loving it. Max Browne is heading to USC to play quarterback, and with Matt Barkley heading to the NFL we may just see Browne starting this season as a freshman. Trayvon Bromwell is the first American high school athlete to run a sub 10.0 in the 100-meter dash with a 9.99 second effort this past season. We’ll probably be seeing him in the Olympics soon.
Gatorade surprises all of the winners at their high school with their award, so we heard plenty of stories about that in our interviews. Max Browne explained how they showed up on his last day of school and how his friend had played along while the coach made it sound like they had gotten in some sort of trouble. Mercedes Russell said her coach only told her they would be taking some pictures that day so at elast she was prepared for that part of it.
A number of pro athletes were on hand to give out the awards and honor these young kids, including Phillip Rivers, Paul George, Abby Wambach and Misty May-Treanor. We were able to speak with each of them and we’ll be posting videos soon.
When we spoke with Andrew Wiggins, he explained how he’s already training with the Kansas Jayhawks and looking forward to the upcoming season. He seems to be handling all of the hype well, saying that he’s just concerned with the upcoming season now and he’s not getting distracted by the potential of being the #1 pick in the NBA draft next year. I asked him about a budding rivalry between him and Jabari Parker, last year’s winner in the basketball category who decided to attend Duke, Wiggins pointed out that Kansas and Duke will face off this season in Chicago, so he’s definitely paying attention to the matchup. It will be fun to watch these two incredible talents play against each other, possibly sparking a new Bird-Magic type of rivalry for years to come.