Choosing Chandler’s greatest athletes
This is part of a series, listing an Arizona high school and finding its five alltime greatest athletes, male or female, a subjective list by The Arizona Republic.
It’s not just about what they did in high school but beyond that is taken into strong consideration when finding these Forever Five.
Chandler
Cameron Jordan, 2007
Most decorated football player beyond his high school days in Chandler High’s history. After a brilliant senior season in which the defensive end had 17.5 sacks and 37 tackles for losses, leading the Wolves to an 11-2 record, he took off as a true freshman at California, playing in all 13 games. He got better every year and by the time he played his last college season in 2010, he finished with 175 tackles, 34 for losses, 16.5 sacks in a career that saw him play in 50 of 51 possible games. With the New Orleans Saints, he made the NFL’s All-Decade
Team for the 2010s, a five-time Pro Bowler, who is coming off maybe his best season with 37 tackles and 15.5 sacks. Cindy Johnson, 1982
A tremendous multi-sports athlete who still hold the girls state discus record with a toss of 176 feet, 4 inches. She excelled in softball just as well, before moving onto USC where the track and field star stood out in the shot and the discus. She once owned the state shot put record of 47-5. Post-college, Johnson played softball, and was the most valuable player of a women’s world softball tournament. She died in 2014 from an illness at the age of 50.
Brett Hundley, 2011
He was the Gatorade Arizona Football Player of the Year during his junior season in 2009 when passed for 1,500 yards and ran for 1,200 yards and had a total of 28 touchdowns. After finishing a remarkable high school career in 2010, a big part of the surge that has made Chandler the most dominant program in the state today, he had a record-setting career at quarterback at UCLA, finishing with 11,713 total yards. He has since been an NFL backup, and is with the Arizona Cardinals.
Ky Westbrook, 2014
One of the most dominant female track and field performers in Arizona high school history, she took home four individual gold medals at the state championships her senior year, leading the Wolves to a ninth consecutive state championship. She broke Cindy Johnson’s
school and state record in the shot put earlier in the season. She had career bests in the 100 and 200 meters at 11.11 and 23.22 seconds. She was 14-time state champion in high school, before taking it to another level at USC, a standout in the sprints and relays who was hoping for an Olympics shot before it was postponed by the pandemic. N’Keal Harry, 2016
The freakishly athletic wide receiver was a big part of Chandler’s first state title in the AIA bracket era that began in 1959 in 2014 when he was a freshman and Bryce Perkins was the quarterback. Not only big (6-foot-4, 215 pounds), but physical and athletic, he once got on ESPN’s Top Plays for his backboard shattering dunk during a high school basketball game. He went from being a HS Under Armour All-American to being a Freshman All-American at Arizona State by Scout, Campus Insiders and Pro Football Focus in 2016 when he had 58 catches, the most by a freshman in ASU’s history. He made first-team AllPac-10 his sophomore year and declared for the NFL draft after a stellar junior season, and was the 32nd pick in the first round by the New England Patriots.