Students made the trip to the MLC gymnasium on Saturday, to receive a certificate and for a couple special people from each school they would earn the highest honor New Ulm could bestow on an athlete, the Outstanding Athlete award.
The Athletic directors from each school attended to give a little speech on the athlete and the coaches comments on each athlete. “I get a coach to nominate an athlete that they’ve coached and from those nominations, I do a quick ballot of who the bests are,” athletic director Adam Neubarth said.
After the nominations have been organized the coaches vote on one male and one female winner. “I have an executive committee of coaches. They vote, and then I meet with another committee comprised of coaches and New Ulm club members, and we discuss who the executive committee voted from the finalists,” Neubarth said.
Being an athlete that lettered doesn’t always get you into the running.
There are some requirements to be nominated. “The first criteria is you can’t have a violation,” Neubarth said. These are any violations with the school or any legal violations. Other criteria would be being a good student and teammate, but those are more for tie-breaking because this is an “athlete performance award.”
Lastly, you have to be a senior with a letter participating in a “Minnesota State section sports,” Neubarth said. This would mean knowledge bowl and cheer leading for example would not count.
Senior Zach Hubbard was one of the winners of the Outstanding Athlete award. He lettered 10 times throughout his high school career with 3 in football, 3 in basketball, and 4 in baseball.
“It means a lot, a lot of hard work goes into it,” Zach said. He said he didn’t expect to win the award because there were lots of other really good players, but was “happy to win it.”
