In its 30th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with USA TODAY High School Sports, today announced Alex Malzone of Brother Rice High School as its 2014-15 Gatorade Michigan Football Player of the Year.
Malzone is the first Gatorade Michigan Football Player of the Year to be chosen from Brother Rice 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 Malzone as Michigan’s best high school football player.
Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Football Player of the Year award announced in December, Malzone joins an elite alumni association of past state award-winners in 12 sports,including Mark Sanchez (2004-05, Mission Viejo HS, Calif.), Wes Welker (1999-00, Heritage Hall HS, Okla.), Terrell Suggs (1999-00, Hamilton HS, Ariz.), Anquan Boldin (1998-99, Pahokee HS, Fla.) and Jerome Bettis (1989-90,Mackenzie HS, Mich.).
The 6-foot-2, 205-pound senior quarterback threw for 2,998 yards and 38 touchdowns against five interceptions on 211-of-325 passing (65 percent) this past season, leading the Warriors (11-1) to the Division 2 regional finals. TheDivision 1-2 Player of the Year as named by the Associated Press, Malzone led Brother Rice to back-to-back Division 2 state championships as a sophomore and junior.
A 2014 Elite 11 quarterback camp finalist, he set every major passing record in school history. Malzone has maintained a 3.79 GPA in the classroom. An active member of his church community, he has also volunteered on behalf of the Christ Child House and Saint Vincent de Paul, supporting the underprivileged in Detroit.
“Alex Malzone is maybe the best quarterback I’ve seen in the Detroit Catholic League in my 25 years,” said George Porritt, head coach of rival Orchard Lake Saint Mary’s Prep. “He has the skill level to be great, but the intellectual level to be special.”
Malzone has verbally committed to play football on scholarship at the University of Michigan beginning in the fall of 2015.
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 high school sports leadership team in partnership with USA TODAY High School Sports, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Malzone joins recent Gatorade Michigan Football Players of the Year Travis Smith (2013-14, Ithaca High School), Mark Chapman (2012-13, Port Huron High School), Cooper Rush (2011-12, Lansing Catholic High School), Valdez Showers (2010-11, Madison High School), Jason Fracassa (2009-10, Stevenson), Joe Glendening (2008-09, East Grand Rapids High School) and Mike Martin (2007-08, Detroit Catholic Central) among the state’s list of former award winners.
