Legacy. Tradition. A who’s who of American sport. As the Gatorade Player of the Year program celebrates its 30th anniversary year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, fans can count many a household name on the roster of former award-winners. Over the past three decades, prep sports’ most esteemed honor boasts Super Bowl, World Series, NBA, WNBA, MLS Cup, NCAA and Olympic champions among more than 13,000 State Players of the Year and 270 National POYs across 12 sports. Let’s not forget the scores of program alumni who have gone on to capture league-MVP, All-Star and All-American recognition. Today, we’re catching up with former Gatorade Cross Country Runners of the Year turned college stars.
We’re not sure what Edward Cheserek and the other top finishers at last month’s NCAA Division I men’s cross country championships drank before and after the race, but one thing’s for certain: They sure were fueled by Gatorade State Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year trophies.
The 2012-13 Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year, Cheserek won a second straight individual 10,000-meter national title with a time of 30:19.40, leading the University of Oregon to a sixth-place finish.
His collegiate success comes as a surprise to nobody. Cheserek capped a remarkable Newark (N.J.) Saint Benedict’s Prep career with consecutive national Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. He became only the fourth repeat champion in the race’s 36-year history to accomplish the feat.
Cheserek’s teammate on the Ducks, Eric Jenkins, who captured 2009-10 Gatorade New Hampshire Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year honors, finished second behind him in the Division I men’s championships on Nov. 22. In fact, the top five finishers at the event earned Gatorade ROY trophies.
Three-time Indiana Runner of the Year Futsum Zeinasellassie, who also earned 2011-12 National ROY honors from Gatorade as a high school junior, placed third. He was followed by 2009-10 Missouri ROY Maksim Korolev in fourth and two-time California ROY Ammar Moussa in fifth.
Kenyan Stanley Kebenei broke the string of former Gatorade winners with a sixth-place finish, but two-time Utah ROY Ben Saarel kept the tradition going in seventh. Remarkably, eighth-place finisher John Mascari is the top U.S. native without a Gatorade ROY trophy to his name, and he had the misfortune of living in the same state as Zeinasellassie as a prep senior.
Moussa and Saarel anchored a team national title for the University of Colorado, which also received top-50 finishes from 2010-11 Gatorade Colorado Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year Connor Winter, 2009-10 Gatorade Hawaii Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year Pierce Murphy and 2009-10 Gatorade North Carolina Boys Cross Country ROY Jake Hurysz.
On the women’s side, England native Kate Avery won the individual NCAA Division I 6,000-meter national championship for Iona College with a time of 19:31.60. Avery narrowly defeated University of Wisconsin’s Sarah DiSanza, the 2012-13 Gatorade New Jersey Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year.
Former Gatorade State Girls Cross Country Runners of the Year Rachel Johnson (2010-11 Texas) and Shelby Houlihan (2010-11 Iowa) also raced their way into the women’s top 10, finishing fifth and ninth, respectively.
To see the legacy for yourself, visit the Gatorade Player of the Year winner archive, where you can relive history and see which future stars won their first national recognition as high school athletes. To see the cream of the crop, visit the roster of Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year winners, showcasing Gatorade’s top male and female National Player of the Year honoree, selected annually from each POY class.