Duke’s Cameron Boozer received the 2026 Naismith Men’s Player of the Year award on Sunday after his impressive freshman season with the Blue Devils. He beat out Kansas’s Darryn Peterson and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, his fellow star freshmen, for the award. These three players are expected to be selected No. 1, 2 and 3 in June’s NBA draft, though the order is still very much up for debate ahead of the draft lottery.
Boozer winning the Naismith award means a Duke player achieved this milestone in back-to-back seasons (Cooper Flagg won last year). But, it also means that Christopher Columbus High School in Miami swept the two major men’s college awards this season. A fellow alum of the high school is none other than Fernando Mendoza, the Indiana quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy before winning a national championship in January.
This is the first known time in college sports history in which the Heisman and Naismith winners in the same year went to the same high school, per CBS Sports’ Cameron Salerno, and they happened to attend Christopher Columbus High School at the same time, too. When Boozer was a freshman in high school back in 2021–22, Mendoza was a senior. There’s a good chance the two star athletes didn’t know each other, though, as the high school had an enrollment of about 1,700 students that year—and, there was obviously a big age gap.
Boozer admitted before Duke’s Elite Eight loss to UConn that he didn’t really know Mendoza while in high school, but he was friends with his younger brother Alberto, who was only one year older than the Boozer twins.
“I never really talked to him,” Boozer said. “I know his younger brother Alberto because he’s [in the Class of] 2024. From what I've heard from everyone, he’s a great dude, same thing with Alberto. Great dude. Great guys. Great family. I’m proud of everything that they have accomplished. It’s impressive to go undefeated and win a national championship and win the Heisman. Shoutout, Columbus man. They have a lot of big-time people come out of this school. Super proud of everything they’re representing. They’re representing our school and Miami well. Great people, super proud of them.”
Boozer and Mendoza could continue making history in the next couple of months. Mendoza is widely expected to be selected No. 1 by the Raiders at the NFL draft later this month. If this happens, and if Boozer ends up being drafted No. 1 in June, then they would become the first duo from the same high school to go first in their respective drafts in the same year.
These two athletes are already two of the most famous sports alumni from Christopher Columbus High School. Notably, Miami coach Mario Cristobal, ex-NFL quarterback Brian Griese and former Alabama football coach Mike Shula all graduated from the Miami high school. There’ve been 17 football players drafted to the NFL from the high school (with Mendoza soon to become with 18th), while there’s only been one other basketball star drafted to the NBA from the school: Magic 2025 draftee Jase Richardson last year. Boozer, and his brother Cayden, will likely become the second and third Columbus alumni to head to the NBA.
More March Madness from Sports Illustrated
Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on the SI College YouTube channel.
- After a Hard Reset, UCLA Decided to Win a National Championship on Its Own Terms
- ‘We Got Smacked’: South Carolina Couldn’t Do Anything Right in the National Championship
- Why Three UCLA Players Danced to Tate McRae After Winning National Championship
- Breaking Down the Matchups That Will Crown a Men’s Hoops Champion: Michigan vs. UConn
- Dan Hurley’s Wife Went to Great Lengths to Retrieve Coach’s Holy Beads for Final Four
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cameron Boozer’s Naismith Win Makes Unique College Sports History With Fernando Mendoza.
