Prep Voices : Coming to Terms With ‘Athletes of the Week of the Year’

I have a friend who is always begging to be named Orange County’s athlete of the week. The award is picked by the prep staff, but this friend knows that as the one responsible for writing the feature, I usually make the final decision.

His pitch goes something like this: “I went surfing in the morning. Then I rode my bike 30 miles. Later I finished off the day by windsurfing.

“I think you should seriously consider me.”

“Very impressive, Dave,” I tell him. “But there’s one problem. You’re not in high school.”

We have our standards, but there’s no standard way to determine who should get this sort of honor. We can only hope to make it fair.

That’s why it was enlightening to look back at who received the award this year and what schools they attend. As you might expect, traditionally successful schools were represented the most: Edison (five), Corona del Mar (five), Fountain Valley (four), Los Alamitos (four) and Marina (four).

But we try to spread it around a bit and more than half of the high schools in the county (45) had a player honored.

Only two athletes--Carrie Garritson of Buena Park (cross-country and track) and Marie Philman of Edison (twice in basketball)--were picked twice.

Notable omissions were Mater Dei’s Miles Simon and Brea-Olinda’s Nicole Erickson, the best basketball players in the county two seasons in a row. They were unfortunately penalized because their teams were so dominant that giving one of them the award seemed like overkill.

Admittedly, we’re suckers for the underdog.

Pitch a perfect game in baseball, strike out 20 in a softball game, set a national swimming record, make free throws in the final seconds to win a basketball game--those are the types of accomplishments that’ll get you this award.

But who--in my opinion--are the two “athletes of the week of the year”?

There are plenty of strong candidates, Philman’s clutch fourth-quarter performances led her team to victories over two ranked teams in a week and Los Alamitos quarterback Mike Good passed for 403 yards and four touchdowns in a victory over Huntington Beach in a section title game.

But I don’t think anyone can beat Cypress running back Greg Cleave, who rushed for 296 yards in only 12 carries and scored four touchdowns, including one with a minute left in the game that gave the Centurions a 34-34 tie with Katella.

Tara Oettinger of Foothill is my pick for girls’ athlete of the week of the year. She won four events--the long jump, the 100, 200 and 400 meters--at the Orange County Championships and her mark in each ranks in the top five in meet history.

Best of all, she and Cleave are high school students.