David Klech and Lauren Cheney are no strangers to the spotlight,
but the two heralded UCLA recruits were still a bit starstruck
after being honored with the rest of the nation’s elite high
school athletes last week.
Klech and Cheney, incoming freshmen in track and soccer,
respectively, attended the Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year
award show last Wednesday as they were both in the running for the
title of the nation’s top prep athlete. While the two high
school stars have already accumulated enough hardware to last a
lifetime, this experience trumped them all.
“This is by far the most impressive award I have ever
won,” said Klech, the nation’s top prep 300-meter
hurdler. “It is such a huge honor. When I found out I was
named the country’s top track and field athlete, it was such
a surprise. I was really overwhelmed and happy that my years of
hard work have paid off.”
The elite event, a prelude to the ESPN ESPY awards held later
that same day in Hollywood, honored the top athletes in every major
high school sport as well as unveiled the Gatorade National Athlete
of the Year for men and women.
The show also featured some of the awards’ most prominent
recipients, including Alonzo Mourning and Logan Tom.
While the majority of athletes honored by Gatorade go on to have
superb professional careers, Klech and Cheney also figure to have
successful tenures as Bruins.
Klech has been billed as the track and field program’s
next elite hurdler, while Cheney is already playing in the World
Cup for the United States Under-20 National Team and will join an
already loaded Bruin squad in the fall.
“I’m so excited to play with all of the girls (at
UCLA),” Cheney, a native of Indianapolis, said. “I
think we have so much potential to be great.”
Klech and Cheney join other Bruins who have won this award, such
as current softballers Anjelica Selden and Lisa Dodd and former
NCAA national 400m track champion Monique Henderson, though this
marks the first year in school history that UCLA has had the luxury
of welcoming two Gatorade National Athlete of the Year nominees to
Westwood.
And while National Athlete of the Year awards ended up going to
basketball phenoms Greg Oden, the projected No. 1 overall pick in
the 2007 NBA draft, and Tina Charles, Klech and Cheney were not
disappointed.
“This award is leaps above all others,” Cheney said.
“All of the nominees are so elite in everything that they do;
it is such an honor to just be here and be around all of these
people.”