Tonight, Gatorade introduced that Sadie Engelhardt and Cooper Flagg have been named Gatorade’s 2023-24 Girls’s Participant of the 12 months and Males’s Participant of the 12 months throughout the 2024 ESPYs gamers. The distinguished honor places Engelhardt and Flagg among the many ranks of previous recipients, together with Jayson Tatum, Sidney McLaughlin-Lefron and Karl-Anthony Cities. The award was introduced stay on stage by former Gatorade Girls’s Participant of the 12 months Candace Parker and Paige Bueckers.
The ceremony was a part of a week-long celebration in Los Angeles the place the 12 Gatorade Gamers of the 12 months skilled unique occasions. Highlights embrace a photograph shoot, early entry to the newest Gatorade iD Drop and a efficiency by Lil Yachty. The occasion additionally gives athletes with the chance to offer again to the group by means of the Gatorade Sports activities Fairness Program.
Engelhardt and Flagg, together with different Gamers of the 12 months, visited native sports activities organizations to help younger athletes. At Hollywood Excessive Faculty, they stunned Los Angeles Leisure Parks and Ladies Athletic Management Faculty with a $25,000 donation from 2022-23 Gatorade Nationwide Girls’s Basketball Participant of the 12 months and USC guard Juju Watkins. The donation will probably be used to pay for subsequent yr’s athletic programming, gear and costs.
Along with the $25,000 donation, every Gatorade Participant of the 12 months will obtain a grant for use to donate to social affect companions. Athletes can submit a video explaining why their chosen group deserves a Highlight Grant, which gives an extra $10,000. This yr’s 12 Highlight Award recipients participated within the Los Angeles celebration as Gatorade Participant of the 12 months honorees supplied greater than $4.9 million in prize cash to greater than 1,600 organizations.
Sadie Engelhardt is a standout in California highschool monitor and discipline, main the nation in 4 occasions this season and main her crew to a second-place end on the state meet. She broke the nationwide highschool mile document on the HOKA Mile Competition with a time of 4:28.46 and on the Portland Observe Competition with a time of 4:08.86, rating fifth in U.S. ladies’s prep historical past. Engelhardt additionally broke the California document for the 1,600 meters on the state meet with a time of 4 minutes, 32.06 seconds. She has maintained a weighted GPA of 4.59 and is dedicated to competing at North Carolina State College.
Cooper Flagg, the nation’s No. 1 basketball recruit within the Class of 2024, led the Montverde Eagles to an ideal 34-0 season and the Chipotle Nationals championship. Flagg can be the 2021-22 Gatorade Maine Participant of the 12 months, averaging 16.5 factors, 7.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.7 blocks and 1.6 steals per sport this season. He participated in fundraisers for the Ronald McDonald Home and the Donovan Coulter Memorial Most cancers Basis and volunteered at youth basketball camps and clinics. Flagg had a weighted GPA of 4.10 and signed with Duke College.
As a part of the celebration, the 12 Nationwide Gamers of the 12 months acquired unique first dibs on a restricted version Drop created by Gatorade in partnership with UNINTERRUPTED. Engelhardt and Flagg are the primary fashions within the assortment, which incorporates retro-style Gatorade-branded blazers and towels, T-shirts, limited-edition snapbacks and Gx bottles. The Drop will probably be out there in restricted portions beginning on Friday, July 12 at 10am ET on Gatorade iD, the model’s free membership platform.
For extra details about the Gatorade Participant of the 12 months program, go to playeroftheyear.gatorade.com.
