University of Tennessee Athletics
T&F Signee Reaps Gatorade Honors
June 24, 2011 | Men's Track
June 24, 2011
By Eric Trainer, Associate Director of Media Relations
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Big Orange track & field signee Tyler Anderson has been named the 2010-11 Gatorade Tennessee Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year, the Gatorade Company, in conjunction with ESPN RISE, has announced.
The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the track, distinguishes Anderson as Tennessee's best high school boys track & field athlete. A jumper/sprinter from Hillsboro High School in Nashville, he now is a finalist for the Gatorade National Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year award. He will join Maryville product Jordan Chaney, a 2008-09 winner of the state Gatorade award, at Rocky Top.
Competing with an injured hamstring, the 6-foot-2 senior won the triple jump with a leap of 46 feet, 2 inches at the Class AAA state meet this spring, leading the Burros to sixth place as a team. Anderson also took second in the long jump with a leap of 23-5 1/4, and fourth in both the 100-meter dash (10.93) and the 200-meter dash (22.09).
The 2011 Midstate Track Athlete of the Year, he set a state-record in the Boston-Moon Classic with a 24-8 1/4 mark in the long jump. Anderson ranked among the nation's top 75 prep performers in 2011 at the time of his selection in the long jump, triple jump and 200 meters. He did so while maintaining a 3.10 GPA in the classroom and finding time to volunteer with the Nashville Fire Department.
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 ESPN RISE and the Gatorade high school sports leadership team, 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.
