In 1985, The Gatorade Company established an award honoring America’s elite high school student-athletes. Now in its third decade of celebrating the nation’s best prep athletes, the Gatorade Player of the Year award has become the most prestigious accolade in high school sports. The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one award-winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball and boys and girls track & field. This field of candidates represents a prep-athlete pool of more than 5.4 million competitors. Today, the award’s legacy is built upon the achievement of more than 9,000 State and 197 National Players of the Year honored during that time.

Amongst Gatorade Player of the Year award alumni, fans will discover names like Emmitt Smith, Lisa Leslie, Peyton Manning, Kerri Walsh, Derek Jeter, and Allyson Felix. These champions represent only a handful of exceptional talents who were first recognized by the Gatorade Player of the Year program before shining at the highest levels of competition and beyond. As its award enters a 24th season, The Gatorade Company looks forward to saluting hundreds more high school athletes this year and thousands in the years to come.

Gatorade State Players of the Year are selected on the basis of outstanding athletic excellence accompanied by high standards of academic achievement and exemplary personal character demonstrated on and off the field. The selection process is administered by ESPN RISE Magazine, the nation’s leading sports and lifestyle magazine for teens. Featuring an editorial staff of prep sports writers from across the nation, ESPN RISE has comprehensively covered the world of high school sports for more than a decade and its 25 regionalized editions are currently distributed in more than 7,000 high schools nationwide.

In researching, tracking and comparatively analyzing candidates for Gatorade Player of the Year, ESPN RISE brings to bear the journalistic resources of the world’s leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company. All state winners are eligible for the Gatorade National Player of the Year award in their respective sports.

Following the announcement of the Gatorade State Players of the Year, ESPN RISE further evaluates and analyzes the athletic, academic and extra-curricular résumés of the state winners in each sport, consulting with nationally focused sport-specific experts in the process.

From the pool of Player of the Year honorees in each state, one is chosen as Gatorade National Player of the Year — the country’s best all-around high school student-athlete in his or her sport.

All 12 Gatorade National Player of the Year winners then become eligible for the program’s culminating honor — the Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year award.

A national panel of 300 sports journalists, coaches, prep sports experts and analysts annually reviews each of the 12 Gatorade National Player of the Year résumés. National Player of the Year winners have demonstrated high achievement in the classroom and impeccable character on and off the field. The primary athletic criteria for selecting the nation’s top overall male and female high school athlete are as follows:

Individual résumé, including historical context of accomplishments, statistics, honors, talent-level evaluation, etc.

Team play, including leadership ability and impact on team success.

Overall contributions to sport; including, but not limited to achievements/impact made at the club, national or international levels of competition, standout performances in multiple sports, etc.

The male and female athletes who emerge from this review process as the two most outstanding are each named Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year and presented their awards at a special afternoon ceremony prior to The ESPY Awards in July.