Gatorade boy's player of the year (XC) goes to 13th at NXN

I reviewed the winners across the country and the selections were not all the best runners in each state which i found odd. Apparently the Player of the Year is actually not the best player but the best scholar and philanthropist. Good thing they don’t have these same standards all the time or a couple of the all time greats would be left out…. This year was really bad and they selected runners in some cases that weren’t even number 1 or 2 fastest times at the respective state meet….This award should be renamed because a lot of these kids were not “Player of the year” but best Scholar/Philo Athlete of the year.

Last year Aaron Sahlman won NXN and was not chosen.

Daniel Simmons was chosen for the second year in a row.

I watch our Gatorade Player of the a year get dominated by a kid from illinois this season in St. louis and so I assumed he won Illinois. When he didn’t i thought he must have gotten hurt. Nope the kid actually was the State Champion and highest finisher at NXR and NXN for his state. The kid that won the award was credited for having a high grade point average. How is this a Player of the Year award?

Connor Mantz should have won this year.

Grant Fisher presented it to him. Was that his decision?

milesplit.com

A Little Bit Of Deja Vu For National POY Daniel Simmons,

Cory Mull

Two times was the charm for Daniel Simmons. The American Fork senior won his second straight Gatorade Player of the Year trophy on Monday.

Open link

From the Gatorade web page:

“We expect more from our athletes, that’s why the Gatorade Player of the Year program recognizes the nation’s most outstanding high school student-athletes for their athletic excellence, academic achievement and exemplary character. That’s what makes this award the most prestigious honor in High School sports.”

It’s BS since this is a running website i’ll point out just runners but everyone knows the German Fernandez barely got into college due to academics. Coach Smith pulled out a miracle to get him in. We have another one that won overall POY and struggled to speak english. So to say this is an award that is beyond athletics is all BS. People are picking and choosing when to be consistent.

The choice is odd this year. he wasn't second like he was last year. He was thirteenth.

why not Drew Griffith?

What bothers me most is not that they chose a 13th place finisher, but that they chose the same kid twice...even though he finished 13th.

https://playeroftheyear.gatorade.com/winner/daniel-simmons/40151

Like, okay he's a good kid and all with good grades, but is this really such an exemplary resumé that it surpasses all others who competed in the country?

Sarah Baxter won with a 3.0 GPA. It's not really about grades it is about the sport first and foremost.

I disagree for Texas, Caden Leonard won the highest division 6A state meet along with 21st at both Woodbridge and NXN as just a sophomore. Oh yes he had the A- average and volunteer work too. They certainly got it right for Texas.

Couldn’t agree more….what this tells me is that this award is truly about athletic performance and they picked simmons because they assumed he had a bad race at NXN and his domination all season weighed in. If you look at Drew Griffith he academically was the better choice. By the committee making simmons the selection they knew he was the best runner this year….they are just inconsistent in what the award stands for. which should be the title and is the best Player. Gatorade really messed up allowing Rich Gonzalez to participate in selections.

He ironically didn't win a championship race last year either. He won because they couldn't wrap their heads around giving it to A Sahlman, 3rd best guy on his team.

So he's a 2 time Gatorade winner, who never won a championship race.

wow, you're so funny

Drew was hands down the winner on paper in at lease 2 of 3 categories!!! Gatorade/ Rich Gonzalez just sucks and pick and choose when the other categories apply to this selection. This year was exceptionally bad and the award is becoming a joke because it is not truly a “Player of the Year” across the country. I feel bad for these kids who deserved it.

This is an odd pick. Last year it was an unusual pick for him as well. I do think he's probably the fastest runner in the nation, but he didn't step up to the plate at NXN.

I've never actually heard what happened there(racing for his team? Bad race? A Fall?). He was in a completely different stratosphere than JoJo Jourdon all season.

Last year made sense this year didn’t given performance at NXN and comparing Drew academics to his. The course was just a disaster and if you didn’t get out strong the race was over. I think both kids are awesome my point is that Gatorade made a ton of errors this year because they were so inconsistent in what mattered.

I'm not defending his Gatorade selection, but I'm pretty sure Simmons did fall early on at NXN.

He was probably pacing his team at the beginning. He wasn’t in the top 100 at the first K.

But either way, he beat all of the team scorers at NXN

Shoes that Rotz was political as it should have been Leachman.

It was known that last year A. Sahlman would have been the winner but he was an academic non-qualifier so they went with Simmons as the pick since he was second and beat the Foot Locker winner at NXN. This year was tough. Griffith only raced against two top-level guys all year (Pajak and Nance) and he lost to one of them. He didn't face most of the best runners. Simmons did face the best and had better races this year but took 13th at NXN. The story of what happened to Simmons at NXN was hard to believe. There will be a 30 For 30 on it someday if they ever do those for XC.