CHICAGO — In its 37th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Abby Faith Cheeseman of The Webb School is the 2021-22 Gatorade Tennessee Girls Cross Country Player of the Year. Cheeseman is the first Gatorade Tennessee Girls Cross Country Player of the Year to be chosen from The Webb School.
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 Cheeseman as Tennessee’s best high school girls cross country player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award to be announced in February, Cheeseman joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12 sports, including Lukas Verzbicas (2010-11 & 2009-10, Carl Sandburg High School, Orland Park, Ill.), Megan Goethals (2009-10, Rochester High School, Rochester Hills, Mich.), Jordan Hasay (2008-09, Mission College Preparatory Catholic High School, San Luis Obispo, Calif.) and Chris Derrick (2007-08, Neuqua Valley High School, Naperville, Ill.).
The 5-foot freshman won the Division II-A state meet this past season with a time of 17:26.91, breaking the tape 1:31.67 ahead of her next-closest competitor and leading the Feet to a fourth-place finish as a team. Cheeseman took fourth at the Eastbay South Regional Championships and was the only freshman girl to qualify for the national Eastbay Cross Country Championships, where she finished 31st. She concluded the 2021 campaign ranked as the nation’s No. 19 runner by MileSplit.com.
A talented violinist who played at both of her sisters’ weddings, Cheeseman played the lead role in her school’s stage production of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She has volunteered locally at track meets. “Abby appears to be a once-in-a-generation runner,” said Mark Newman, head coach of St. George’s Academy. “Her improvement from 2020 to 2021 was astronomical. I am most impressed with her fitness and rhythm. She is a steady runner who loves to surge and get stronger throughout a race. She is very smart tactically in that she starts out very under control and just tightens the screws.”
Cheeseman has maintained an unweighted 4.3 GPA in the classroom. She will begin her sophomore year of high school this fall.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.
Cheeseman joins recent Gatorade Tennessee Girls Cross Country Players of the Year Jenna Hutchins (2020-21 & 2019-20 Science Hill High School), and Sasha Neglia (2018-19 & 2017-18, Dobyns-Bennett High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.