High school standouts
Who’s the best high school athlete since LeBron James? Two swimmers can make a case,
In 2003, the Revolution was televised.
LeBron James, a high school senior, became one of the biggest draws across sports. His games were showcased on ESPN. His highlights lit up SportsCenter. He was Next, and we didn’t even have to wait very long.
He also set off an unintentional cascade of expectations for great high school athletes across other sports. It’s not just prep basketball players who are asked if they can be the next LeBron.
Fourteen years later, a true heir might have emerged. Track star Sydney McLaughlin is 17 and already among the world’s best in her sport, just as James was as a senior at St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio.
Here are the national high school records McLaughlin, from Union Catholic (Scotch Plains, N.J.), holds (and there’s still plenty of time before the Kentucky-bound senior graduates this spring): 400- meter outdoor hurdles. 300- meter outdoor hurdles. 300- meter indoor dash. 400- meter indoor dash. She’s also part of a world record in the distance medley relay. Add her place on the U.S. Olympic team before her senior year — she reached the semifinals of the 400 hurdles in Rio — and it’s hard to argue that another teenager in the last 14 years has been more accomplished, relative to general competition. But is McLaughlin truly the best high school athlete of a generation? Note that the discussion does not include teen athletes who did not participate in high school sports.
Allyson Felix, track
While she graduated the same year as James (2003), Felix is 11 months younger, so we’ve included her on this list. She didn’t earn an Olympic berth while still a high school student but did compete in the Olympics at 18, earning a silver medal in the 200 meters in the 2004 Athens Games. Felix was the high school athlete of the year (as awarded by Track and Field News) as a junior and finished second in the indoor 200 in the U.S. Indoor Track and Field Championships in her senior year.
Candace Parker, basketball
Also nearly LeBron’s age — she graduat- ed in 2004 — Parker was the most dominant high school girls basketball player of her era. She’s the only two-time winner of the American Family Insurance All-USA Girls Basketball Player of the Year Award (2003, 2004) and finished her Naperville Central career as a four-time Illinois allstate selection and two-time state champion. She started 119 of 121 high school games, averaged 22.9 points and 13.2 rebounds and even became the only girl to win the McDonald’s All America Game slam-dunk contest.
Maya Moore, basketball
Like Parker, Moore was a transcendent star throughout her four-year career at Collins Hill High School in Georgia. She was the second junior (after Parker) to win the Naismith High School Player of the Year Award, led Collins Hill to three state titles in four state final appearances and helmed a Collins Hill squad that captured the national title in 2006-07. She finished as her school’s all-time leader in points, rebounds, assists and steals and was the runner-up in the high jump at the Georgia state championships.
Mark Hall, wrestling
In Minnesota, an athlete can compete in six high school seasons, beginning in his seventh grade year. Hall took full advantage, earning 12 titles — six individual and six team — competing for Apple Valley between 2011 and 2016. He finished his scholastic career with four losses, all suffered in his freshman season.
Nick Suriano, wrestling
While Hall was dominating the wrestling season in Minnesota, Suriano did the same in New Jersey. Suriano never lost between 2013 and 2016, becoming just the second wrestler in state history to capture four individual state titles. Suriano was 159-0 overall and was taken down only once in his career competing for national power Bergen Catholic.
Clayton Kershaw, baseball
Kershaw is a household name for his accomplishments with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he also was a stunningly dominant pitcher in the strongest high school baseball state in the country: Texas. Competing for Dallas’ Highland Park, Kershaw finished his senior season 13-0 with a 0.77 ERA and 139 strikeouts in 64 innings. That includes an all-strikeout perfect game during a mercy rule-shortened five-inning affair. He was named the 2006 All-USA Baseball Player of the Year and the Gatorade Player of the Year before being selected with the No. 7 overall pick by the Dodgers.
Missy Franklin, swimming
A contemporary Olympian, Franklin became America’s darling after a stunning performance in the 2012 Olympics in London, where she won five medals (four gold). A dominant star at Regis Jesuit High School in Colorado, she set four world records while still competing for her high school team, including a world record in the 200-meter backstroke during an Olympic final.
Katie Ledecky, swimming
Competing in just one event at age 15, Ledecky won gold in the 800-meter freestyle in London. Over the next three years, while she competed for Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Maryland, Ledecky became the world’s greatest female swimmer. She won four gold medals in the 2013 world championships, setting two world records. She won five gold medals and broke three world records in the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships before a remarkable World Championships run in 2015 when she earned another five gold medals, sweeping the freestyle events while breaking her own world records in the 800 and 1,500. Her high school career was equally impressive. She finished with every swimming record at Stone Ridge except the 100-yard breaststroke.
So who has come closest to LeBron’s remarkable run at St. Vincent-St. Mary? Given the international standards they achieved while still students, Ledecky and Franklin are clearly a cut above.
Yet as great as Franklin’s Olympic medal haul was in 2012, Ledecky’s international accomplishments over the course of her career are even more impressive. After taking an Olympic gold medal just weeks removed from her freshman year, Ledecky has been purely golden. She is perhaps the only swimmer with the potential to eventually catch her idol, fellow Maryland native Michael Phelps.