Daniel Simmons, who followed last year’s illustrious accolades with 10 victories and six course records this year, was named the 2023-24 Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Player of the Year on Monday, the second year in a row he took home the title.
Fellow two-time Gatorade National Player of the Year Grant Fisher came to American Fork High School High School (Utah) to surprise Simmons with the announcement.
“The Gatorade Player of the Year Program celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for the impact they make on the field of play, as well as in the classroom and within their communities,” said Gatorade president and general manager Michael Del Pozzo. “Daniel has demonstrated that he has what it takes to serve as a role model for future generations in sport and beyond.”
This season, Simmons won 10 straight races, including the Utah Class 6A championship and the Nike Cross Southwest Regional Championship. In the Nike regional, he won by 10 seconds with a time of 14:41.13 in the three-mile time, the fastest in the nation, according to Gatorade.
He broke the 14:50 barrier five times and recorded the fastest three-mile time in the nation at the NXR and had the fastest 5K at 14:44.0. He broke the record of six different courses throughout the season.
“Only the third two-time Gatorade National Boys Cross Country winner in program history, Simmons owns an amazing aerobic engine and the race-day tenacity that produced convincing victories against the nation’s top harriers last fall. Compiling a season’s racing resume like his in what many consider to be a Golden Age of interscholastic distance running is both rare and highly impressive.”
His only blemish was finishing 13th in the Nike Cross Nationals. After being ranked No. 1 on MileSplits rankings for the entire season, he finished below Nike champion Drew Griffith.
“I think it was a balanced season to have that,” Simmons said to MileSplit, “not perfect.”
Simmons, a BYU signee, has a 3.93 GPA entering the final semester of high school. He has volunteered at the local public library and reads to children during the weekly story hour. He also participates in community service initiatives through his church’s youth group.
He plans to run in his first semester at the university and then go on a mission with the LDS church, according to MileSplit.
Simmons is only the third runner to win two Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Player of the Year awards, according to the company. The others are Fisher, who won in 2013 and 2014, and Lukas Verzbicas, who won in 2009 and 2010, per MileSplit.
