PRESS RELEASE | In its 37th year of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Connor McCormick of Longmont High School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Colorado Boys Track & Field Player of the Year. McCormick is the first Gatorade Colorado Boys Track & Field Player of the Year to be chosen from Longmont High School.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes McCormick as Colorado's best high school boys track & field athlete. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Boys Track & Field Player of the Year award to be announced in July, McCormick joins an elite alumni association of state award winners in 12 sports, including Lolo Jones (1997-98, Roosevelt High School, Iowa), Allyson Felix (2002-03, Los Angeles Baptist High School, Calif.), Robert Griffin III (2006-07, Copperas Cove High School, Texas), Grant Fisher (2014-15 & 2013-14, Grand Blanc High School, Mich.) and Candace Hill (2014-15, Rockdale County High School, Ga.).
The 6-foot-2, 165-pound senior set a pair of Class 4A state meet records this past season, leading the Trojans to the state championship as a team. McCormick won the 1600 in 4:06.97, which ranked as the nation's No. 10 performance among prep competitors in 2022, and took the 3200 in 9:03.83, also placing second in the 800. He won a national title in the mile with a time of 4:08.59 at the Nike Outdoor Nationals.
McCormick is a member of the Future Business Leaders of America and has volunteered with his school's Link Crew. "Connor is a hard-working athlete who excels as a student too," said Longmont coach Scott Dickinson. "He knows that when the going gets tough, he needs to be mentally strong and disciplined to overcome any challenges he faces."
McCormick has maintained a weighted 4.70 GPA in the classroom. He will attend Princeton University this fall, where he will compete in track and field.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one 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 basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.
The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport. McCormick joins recent Gatorade Colorado Boys Track & Field Players of the Year Harrison Witt (2020-21, Mountain Vista High School), and Cole Sprout (2019-20, 2018-19, & 2017-18, Valor Christian High School), among the state's list of former award winners.
Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field. Through Gatorade's "Play it Forward" platform, McCormick has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization of their choosing that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports. McCormick is also eligible to submit a short video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners' grants have totaled more than $3.5 million across more than 1,300 organizations.
Since the program's inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate studentathletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY, Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade and Twitter at twitter.com/Gatorade.
