![]() ![]() The 4A Player of the Year, she also batted. ![]() Maestretti led the state in strikeouts with 271 while finishing with a 27-1 record and a 0.94 ERA in 148.3 innings pitched. The 5-foot-9 junior left-handed pitcher led the Lions to a 28-1 record and the 4A state championship this past season. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year award to be announced in June, Maestretti joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Jordyn Bahl (2020-21, Papillion-La Vista High School, Neb.), Megan Faraimo (2017-18, Cathedral Catholic High School, Calif.), Rachel Garcia (2014-15, Highland High School, Calif.) and Cat Osterman (2000-01, Cypress Springs High School, Texas). The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Maestretti as Colorado’s best high school softball player. Maestretti is the first Gatorade Colorado Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Lutheran High School. White’s historic significance of being Highland Springs High’s first Black football player was made public by Springer alumni Joe Ellison and Phillip Kirby in their efforts to publish Springer Spirit Volumes I and II.CHICAGO - In its 38 th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Hailey Maestretti of Lutheran High School is the 2022-23 Gatorade Colorado Softball Player of the Year. “It wasn’t paradise, but I have no complaints,” White said. He felt the full support of his white teammates and especially the kindness of assistant Coach Buster Lammay. “I just wasn’t good enough,” he said, declining to accuse anyone of prejudice. White played little on the varsity team in 1966 but did receive some game time with the Springers’ junior varsity team.Īs a junior, he was a backup defensive back. He estimates he was 5-foot-8 and 140 pounds and admits to having only average speed. “It was the first time I’d ever played organized football.” “I’d never worn a helmet or shoulder pads never heard of wrapping ankles or a playbook or wearing cleats,” he said. ![]() It was a culture shock beyond being the only Black player. ![]() On the first day of the fall semester, White signed up for Highland Springs varsity football under head Coach Lindy Hill. White had gone to segregated Fair Oaks Elementary and, until ninth grade, to Fairfield Middle School, which had just begun enrolling Black students. Plus, he sent out a feeler to his friends at Virginia Randolph about playing football there and was told, “Dude, you’re too small,” he recalled with a laugh. “On the other side of the county, a half hour bus ride to and from every day” said White, explaining his decision to stay closer to home. By contrast, it is 16.5 miles from New Bridge Baptist Church to what is now the Virginia Randolph Education Center on Mountain Road. White lived off Nine Mile Road, near New Bridge Baptist Church, a mere 1.6 miles from all-white Highland Springs High School. Prior to full racial integration of Henrico’s public school system, Virginia Randolph, located on Mountain Road in Glen Allen, served as the high school for Black students in the county. “Plus, it was much closer to home than taking the bus all the way to Virginia Randolph.”įor his pioneering efforts in shoulder pads, White recently was recognized by the Henrico County Board of Supervisors with a resolution commending his service to the athletic program at Highland Springs. “I just wanted to play organized football for the first time,” White, now 71, said in a phone interview from his home in Odenton, Md. With high hopes but with a small stature, the sophomore became the Springers’ first Black football player. When Ronald White first went out for football at Highland Springs High School in 1966, he readily discovered he looked different from everyone else. ![]()
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