Three weeks after playing the final game of his high school career, Independence senior Atticus Goodson has collected what will likely be the final accolade of a decorated four-year stretch.
Friday morning the email came through that Goodson, a Walters State baseball signee, has been named the West Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year. For those that have lost track at home, here’s a list of the awards he’s picked up this year across two sports (football and baseball) – the Kennedy Award, the Warner Award, the Lootpress Offensive Player of the Year Award, the Lootpress Golden Slugger Award and now the Gatorade Player of the Year.
For good measure he was also named the Class AA first-team all-state captain in football and will likely cap his career with a second first-team selection in baseball in the coming weeks.
All of those accomplishments perfectly illustrate the caliber of athlete Goodson has been during his time in Coal City. His stature has helped lift the football program from one that hoped for a playoff berth to one that now expects to win in the postseason. He helped bring the baseball program back to statewide prominence. There are many other athletes across various sports that contributed but his is the face associated with a successful era of sports in the school – for now.
The residual impact is what will be most important a decade from now and it’s already being felt.
It’s no secret how involved Goodson is in youth sports in the area and how much those kids adore him. Anybody that’s attended any Indy football or baseball game over the last two or three years can attest to that.
No matter how cold it was in the fall, he captivated their short attention spans each time he had the ball. And he makes sure to be inclusive of them each chance he gets.
In my personal encounters it’s always been the same with him, seemingly making each kid feel like a superstar.
The first example that comes to mind occurred during the signing day of teammate Michael McKinney. After McKinney signed his National Letter of Intent, Goodson was talking with a friend when a younger kid, standing beside his guardian, pointed and said “That’s Atticus!” Goodson recognized this, and in a humbling display approached the kid and immediately struck up conversation, asking if he wanted to take a picture together in a way that exuded humility. Several other kids noticed and in a moment everyone was crowding Goodson but he happily obliged.
He does that even when there aren’t crowds around.
Prior to the Lootpress Spring Sports Banquet on May 28, Goodson was at the middle school championships supporting the next generation of Patriots as they play the game he loves. When talking to him about it, you could see the happiness it brought him.
For a guy seemingly on top of the world he never lets his achievements and stature cloud who he is off the field. There’s a reason for that and it largely pertains to image, though in a good way. He’s aware of the kids that watch his every move, trucking their buddies in the back yard or blasting a ball in batting practice, pretending to be him.
He knows that with the status he’s achieved there’s a level of responsibility that comes with it.
He wants to set an example the same way Noah Adams and Brian and Shane Sexton did for him when he was younger.
“It means a ton knowing that I’m having that impact,” Goodson told me Friday while taking time away from his beach vacation. “At one point we were all that kid looking up to some kid in high school. You don’t want the high school player to be cocky because it almost imparts something in you. The kids will act the same way you do when they’re that age. I want to be the best role model I can be. Maybe if I do that then they’ll be able to do the same when they’re my age.”
In a way it’s fitting that the Gatorade Player of the Year award is the final one of Goodson’s career.
Towards the end of the release proclaiming him as the organization’s Player of the Year, there’s a sentence that reads “Gatorade has a long-standing history of serving athlete communities and understands how sports instill valuable lifelong skills on and off the field”
The release goes on to explain that because of that, Goodson now has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization that helps young athletes realize the benefits of playing sports.
Amongst those benefits is hopefully becoming half the person Goodson has already proven to be.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @Tjack94