CHICAGO — In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade announced Gradey Dick of Sunrise Christian Academy is the 2021-22 Gatorade Kansas Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Dick is the second Gatorade Kansas Boys Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Sunrise Christian 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 court, distinguishes Dick as Kansas’ best high school boys basketball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year award to be announced in March, Dick joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Jayson Tatum (2015-16, Chaminade College Preparatory School, Mo.), Karl-Anthony Towns (2012-13 & 2013-14, St. Joseph High School, N.J.), Jabari Parker (2011-12, Simeon Career Academy, Ill.) and Dwight Howard (2003-04, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, Ga.).
The state’s 2019-20 Gatorade Player of the Year at Wichita Collegiate School, the 6-foot-7, 205-pound senior guard had led the Buffaloes to a 25-1 record and a berth in the Geico Nationals Tournament at the time of his selection.
Dick averaged 17.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.9 steals per game through 26 games. A McDonald’s AllAmerican Game selection, Dick was one of five finalists for the Naismith award. He will represent the United States at the Nike Hoop Summit in April, and he was a member of the gold-medal winning Under-18 U.S. team at the 3-on-3 World Cup last summer.
A member of the Young Life Christian ministry, Dick has volunteered locally at a food pantry and a shelter for the homeless in addition to serving as a middle school math tutor twice a week for the past two years. He has also donated his time to the Special Olympics, Sunrise Christian Academy Basketball Camps, the Buddy Hield Basketball Camp and as a guest speaker/guest coach for younger students at school during his lunch period. “Gradey Dick is a lights-out shooter,” said Paul Biancardi of ESPN Basketball. “He’s also upped his overall game beyond the stats. On and off the court, Dick hasn’t had a misstep all season.”
Dick has maintained a weighted 3.66 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a national letter of intent to play basketball on scholarship at Kansas University this fall.
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.
Two-time winner Dick joins recent Gatorade Kansas Boys Basketball Players of the Year Kennedy Chandler (2020-21, Sunrise Christian Academy), Christian Braun (2018-19, Blue Valley Northwest High School), and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (2017-18, Bishop Miege 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 court. Through Gatorade’s “Play it Forward” platform, Dick 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. Dick 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.