In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Derrick Moore of St. Frances Academy is the 2021-22 Gatorade Maryland Football Player of the Year. Moore is the second Gatorade Maryland Football Player of the Year to be chosen from St. Frances Academy.
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 Moore as Maryland’s best high school football player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Football Player of the Year award to be announced in December, Moore joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners, including Emmitt Smith (1986-87, Escambia High School, Fla.), Matthew Stafford (2005-06, Highland Park High School, Texas) and Christian McCaffrey (2012-13 & 2013-14, Valor Christian High School, Colo.).
The 6-foot-4, 245-pound senior defensive end recorded 55 tackles, 24 tackles for a loss and 12 sacks this past season, leading the Panthers to an 8-1 record and a No. 5 national ranking in the USA TODAY’s Super 25. Moore, who has been selected to play in the 2022 Under Armour All-America Game, helped St. Frances hand Florida power IMG Academy its first home loss since 2014. He is ranked as the nation’s No. 23 recruit in the Class of 2022 by ESPN.
Moore has volunteered locally on behalf of youth sports leagues and camps. “Derrick Moore is one of the best defenders I’ve coached against in 20 years,” said Justin Alumbaugh, head coach at De La Salle (Calif.) High School. “He’s got great speed and physicality. He’s the entire package, just an incredible player.”
Moore has maintained a B average in the classroom. He remains undecided upon a collegiate destination.
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.
Moore joins recent Gatorade Maryland Football Players of the Year Demeioun Robinson (2020-21, Quince Orchard High School), Blake Corum (2019-20, St. Frances Academy), Bryan Bresee (2018-19, Damascus High School), and Anthony Lytton Jr. (2017-18, Dr. Henry A. Wise, Jr. 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, Moore 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. Moore 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.
The above is a news release from Gatorade
