CHICAGO (June 4, 2021) — In its 36th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Aminu Mohammed of Greenwood Laboratory School as its 2020-21 Gatorade Missouri Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Mohammed is the first Gatorade Missouri Boys Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Greenwood Laboratory 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 Mohammed as Missouri’s best high school boys basketball player. Now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year award to be announced in June, Mohammed joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in 12, sports, including Jayson Tatum (2015-16, Chaminade College Preparatory School, Mo.), Karl-Anthony Towns (2012- 13 & 2013-14, St. Joseph High School, N.J.), Jabari Parker (2011-12, Simeon Career Academy, Ill.) and Dwight Howard (2003-04, Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, Ga.).
The state’s 2018-19 Gatorade State Player of the Year, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound senior guard averaged 23.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game this past season, leading the Blue Jays (20-6) to the Class 3 state quarterfinals. Mohammed also recorded 3.1 assists and 2.7 steals per game while connecting on 51.7 percent of his field-goal attempts. A McDonald’s All-American Game selection and the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association’s Mr. Show-Me Basketball winner, Mohammed has been invited to the Team Nigeria Olympic Training Camp. He concluded his prep basketball careerm with 3,219 points and 1,478 rebounds. Mohammed has volunteered locally as a youth basketball coach.
“Aminu Mohammed is one of the hardest-playing prospects in the senior class,” said Paul Biancardi, ESPN National Recruiting Director. “He contributes to the game in a variety of ways as his game touches many different categories. What makes him different is he impacts winning both by his stats and his intangibles.”
Mohammed has maintained a 3.69 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a national letter of intent to play basketball on scholarship at Georgetown University 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 works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Two-time winner Mohammed (2020-21 & 2018-19) joins recent Gatorade Missouri Boys Basketball Players of the Year Caleb Love (2019-20, Christian Brothers College High School), Torrence Watson (2017-18, Whitfield School), and Jared Ridder (2016-17, Kickapoo High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
Through Gatorade’s cause marketing platform “Play it Forward,” Mohammed has the opportunity to award a $1,000 grant to a local or national youth sports organization of their choosing. Mohammed is also eligible to submit a 30- second video explaining why the organization they chose is deserving of one of twelve $10,000 spotlight grants, which will be announced throughout the year. To date, Gatorade Player of the Year winners’ grants have totaled more than $2.7 million across 1,117 organizations.
Since the program’s inception in 1985, Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients have won hundreds of professional and college championships, and many have also turned into pillars in their communities, becoming coaches, business owners and educators.
