In the spring, Franklin baseball player Max Clark wrote down a list of coveted postseason awards.
One by one, he continues to check them off.
On Tuesday, Clark was named Indiana’s Gatorade Player of the Year for the 2021 season. A center fielder/pitcher who batted .450 with six home runs, 34 runs scored and 30 RBIs to lead the Grizzly Cubs to a 20-9 record, Clark understands he is recipient of an honor usually intended for upperclassmen.
“I’m very, very happy, to say the least and very surprised,” said Clark, who completes Johnson County’s Gatorade sweep with Roncalli pitcher Keagan Rothrock, a sophomore pitcher and Whiteland resident, winning the award in softball earlier this month.
“Being a sophomore, it was cool just to be nominated,” Clark said. “To win is really special. I’ve played either with or against a lot of the kids nominated, so to win it is pretty sweet.”
Clark, who carries a 4.01 grade-point average, is the first Franklin baseball player to win the Gatorade award.
The award recognizes those athletes combining athletic and academic excellence with one’s character displayed during and away from competition. Clark is a finalist for the Gatorade National Player of the Year award to be announced in July.
Clark is part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He’s volunteered on behalf of his church youth group and served as a youth baseball coach.
As a freshman, Clark was expected to make an immediate impact to the Grizzly Cubs, but the season was wiped out due to COVID-19. His much-anticipated varsity debut this season didn’t disappoint.
Franklin played 10 games in which Clark delivered two or more hits; he stole 31 bases on the season and never finished with fewer than nine strikeouts in any of his 10 pitching appearances.
“I knew his numbers on the season were really stellar, but that there were also a lot of really good players who were older,” Franklin coach Ryan Feyerabend said. “It’s a huge honor for Max, our program and our school. He has over a 4.0 GPA and has always made himself available for anyone to talk to him.”
As a pitcher, Clark, a left-hander, finished 6-0 with a 0.84 earned run average and 120 strikeouts in only 50 innings.
Clark verbally committed to play baseball at Vanderbilt University during the summer leading up to his freshman year of high school. Closer to home, he still has two more seasons remaining to continue rewriting parts of Franklin’s record book.
“Max is just a good human being,” Feyerabend said. “He’ll do anything and everything to help his team have success.”
