Los Angeles, U.S.A. — The biggest names in high school and professional sports convened in Los Angeles as Gatorade honored the top prep male and female athletes with the tenth annual Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year awards. Gatorade National Football Player of the Year Johnathan Gray (Aledo High School/Aledo, Texas) was named the 2012 Gatorade Male High School Athlete of the Year and Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year Breanna Stewart (Cicero-North Syracuse High School/Cicero, N.Y.) received 2012 Gatorade Female High School Athlete of the Year honors.

Gray and Stewart received their awards at a dinner emceed by ESPN’s Stuart Scott and attended byRobert Griffin III (2006-07 Gatorade Texas Track & Field Athlete of the Year), Alonzo Mourning (1987-88 Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year), Landon Donovan (four-time U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year and three-time MLS Cup Champion) Lisa Leslie (1989-90 Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year), Brandi Chastain (two-time gold medalist and two-time World Cup Champion) andOgonna Nnamani (2000 Gatorade National Volleyball Player of the Year).

Established in 1985, 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.

In addition to athletic excellence, the award recognizes academic achievement and exemplary character on and off the field. In 2003, the Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year awards were established to identify and honor the nation’s top overall male and female high school athletes from among the 12 Gatorade National Players of the Year honored during the high school athletic season.

All Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year nominees will walk the ESPY red carpet and be featured as special guests during The ESPY Awards Show. The show will take place Wednesday evening and air live on ESPN at 9:00 p.m. ET.

“The Gatorade Athlete of the Year awards stand apart in that they honor those who are not only the best on the field of play, but are also proven performers academically, and actively give back to their communities,” said Gatorade President North America and Global Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Robb O’Hagan. “Johnathan and Breanna are outstanding examples of what a leader and a student-athlete should exemplify.”

Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year Award Winners

Johnathan Gray: Gray led the Bearcats to a 14-2 record and a third consecutive 4A Division II state title. He rushed for 3,886 yards and a state-record 65 touchdowns on 347 carries.

• Two-time Gatorade Texas Football Player of the Year
• National record-holder, career touchdowns (205)
• No. 2 in national prep history, 1,232 career points
• Averaged 11.2 yards per carry (21.7 carries per game) and 4.4 TDs per game
• Caught 26 passes for 517 yards (19.9 yards per catch) and 5 TDs
• Ranks second in state prep history for career rushing yards (10,889)
• Owns state records in career carries (1,218), touchdowns, points, 100-yard games (51) and single-season rushing touchdowns (65).
• Ranks fifth in national prep history, single-season yards (3,886)*
• One of five high school backs in history to rush for 10,000-plus yards*
• Signed National Letter of Intent with University of Texas
• No. 2 ranked recruit in Class of 2012 as rated by ESPNU
• 2012 Under Armour All-America Game selection
• 2011 Sports Illustrated All-American
• 2010 and 2011 ESPNHS Mr. Football USA National Player of the Year
• Three-time Class 4A Player of the Year as named by the Texas Sports Writers Association
• 2009 and 2010 Class 4A, Division II state championship game Most Valuable Player
• Three-time Class 4A, Division II state champion
• 2010 and 2011 Tom Landry Award Winner
• 2011 Parade All-American
• 2011 USA Today All-USA First Team All-American
• 2011 US Air Force National Player of the Year
• All-Time scoring record in TX (2nd Nationally)
• 2009 Maxpreps National Sophomore of the Year
• B-plus average
• Youth Group mentor, Willow Park Baptist Church
• Aledo Independent School District Heath Committee, Aledo HS student representative, 2009-11 (promotes healthy lifestyles among peers)
• Aledo HS student council, 2009-11
• Aledo Youth Football mentor
• Helping Hands Foundation, Baylor All Saints Hospital (patient support)
• Alcohol and drug awareness, Shattered Dreams youth-led community collaborative
• AISD special education pupils’ mentor, 2008-11

Breanna Stewart: Stewart led the Northstars to a 23-3 record and a second straight New York State Public School AA Championship as well as New York’s Class AA Federation Tournament of Champions title. She averaged 26.4 points per game, 14.2 rebounds per game, 3.2 assists, 4.2 blocks and 3.1 steals per game this season.

• Two-time Gatorade New York Girls Basketball Player of the Year
• Recorded a 56.7 field goal percentage, 22 double-doubles and 81.2% free throw percentage
• 2012 McDonald’s All-American
• 2012 WBCA All-American
• 2012 Naismith High School Girls Player of the Year
• 2012 Morgan Wooten Player of the Year
• Miss New York Basketball
• 2011-12 Nike Tournament of Champions All-Tournament Team
• Signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the University of Connecticut
• Finished her high school career with 2,367 total career points
• Starter for the U-16, U-17 and U-19 Women’s National Teams
• Named to All-Tournament Team at the 2011 World Championships and won the Gold Medal
• Started for the 2011 Pan-American USA Team
• Won the 2011 Class AA state championship
• 2011 Top-ranked player, ESPNHS and Blue Star Report
• Two-time First Team All-State (2011 & 2012)
• Central New York Counties League Player of the Year (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
• A-minus average
• Youth Basketball Instructor at the YMCA
• Organizer at the Star Leadership seminar Cicero-North Syracuse High
• Instructor at North Syracuse Optimist Girls Basketball Program
• Volunteer for Youth Literacy-Outreach
• Volunteer at the March of Dimes
• Volunteer at the Salvation Army
• Volunteer at the Special Olympics
• Volunteer at Ronald McDonald House charities

Image Courtesy of  Jamie Roach / Shutterstock.com

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How does someone get inspired to make a movie like ‘High School’? It certainly doesn’t hurt to go to high school in Los Angeles, California followed up by college in Boulder, Colorado – both bright stars in the universe of marijuana. Of all the characters director John Stalhberg, Jr. encountered attending school in Boulder; one became the inspiration for the movie’s Psycho Ed character, unforgettably played by Adrien Brody.

The inspiration for the character of Psycho Ed showed up at a friend of a friend’s barbecue one day, holding a glass jar of crystalline powder protectively in his hands. Lit by the overhead red bulb, he announced to all the shady characters present that the jar contained the pure THC crystals reaped from an entire harvest of his scientifically home-grown chronic.

He proceeded to pour it into the host’s hookah pipe for everyone to try. Somehow Stalhberg was expected to go first. He had an intramural basketball league game later that evening, but there this wiry dude was, staring at him with his red beady eyes, sadistically egging me on. There was no escape.

The next thing Stalhberg knew, people’s faces were turning green. What time was it? Where was he? Who were all these long-haired guys wearing burlap sacks and Moroccan caftans staring at him? He checked my watch and then it hit him, “Wait. Today is Thursday, right?” he asked. The shady characters shrugged. They were oblivious to those sorts of details.

Then the realization hit Stalhberg with both barrels— he had fifteen minutes before he and his friends were due on the basketball court for their intramural league game. They’d never make it. And Stalhberg had to round up the team… where were they? Who were they? And why was he sitting on Tupperware containers filled with freshly harvested marijuana?

The power forward, Wysong, sounded drunk when Stalhberg called him, but he agreed to meet the team at the court. Doug and Ziegler were at the barbecue with Stalhberg. Catatonic on a nearby Salvation Army couch, but alive. They had also been victims of Psycho Ed.

That made four players including Stalhberg, but he was still one man shy of the minimum required to properly play the sport of basketball. He caught the eye of a kid he didn’t know who was visiting from New York. The kid was in bad shape. “Can you play basketball?” Stalhberg asked him. The kid stared for what seemed like an hour. Finally, through parched lips and dried mouth he crackled out, “Basketball? No dude… I can play lacrosse though.” Stahlberg started tripping out on how swollen and bloodshot the kid’s eyes were, but there was just no time for that kind of analysis now. The team was due on the hardwood.

Doug and Ziegler shuffled out after Stalhberg and the New Yorker. As they split, Stalhber muttered some excuse why they were leaving to the beady-eyed weed-sadist who had done this to them. The junkie smiled goodbye, revealing a prominent gold tooth.

They arrived at the basketball court with no time to spare. Stalhberg somehow managed to check in his team, and then he saw their opponents. Old guys. Then the recognition flooded into his brain during warm-ups, just as Stalhberg’s bug-eyed Humanities professor, Jim Tasse, pump-faked his teammate (Stalhberg’s albino Archaeology professor Mr. Gould) out of his tight shorts and buried a crazed, three-point jumper in the back of the net… They were about to play the faculty. Apparently the faculty had assembled an intramural squad to compete this year. What on Earth was going to happen? Disaster was averted as Stalhberg’s team proceeded to get their asses handed to them by the duck-tailed baby boomers.

The story of this game, including all the cheap elbows, dirty play and the green New Yorker’s half-court, buzzer-beating miracle shot were the seeds of the story “Intramural,” which ultimately became the essence of the movie ‘High School’.

Stahlberg developed the prototypic “Intramural” into a script for ‘High School’, spinning off the central character of Psycho Ed into his own story, but Stalhberg was never satisfied with it until he met a surfer named Travis Breaux from San Diego. Stalhberg pictured a high school character with that name… and he instantly saw the whole movie. After that, he sat down and banged out the new script in a month.

The lead character would be a skateboarder named Travis Breaux. The other lead would be the polar opposite… the valedictorian Henry Burke. They would be childhood friends who grew apart as they entered high school. The awkward tension of fading childhood relationships passing by the same high school hallways day after day intrigued Stalhberg and he was familiar with it. It felt like an interesting dynamic between the two leads of the film.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.highschool-themovie.com

Photo Credit : NEIL JACOBS

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Teenage rhinoplasty is by far the most common plastic surgery procedure performed on young patients around the world. Some people argue that teenagers are too young for such procedures. Nevertheless, there are many health-related reasons for teenage rhinoplasty, and even a purely cosmetic approach can do wonders for self-esteem.

So long as there is a good support system, and the teenage patient is psychologically stable and mature, with a solid understanding of the risks and benefits, then teenage rhinoplasty can be very rewarding.

Dr. Ashkan Ghavami states, “Teenage rhinoplasty is actually one of my favorite procedures. I love seeing the smile on a young person’s face from something I was able to provide for them, as they go on to live the rest of their lives and conquer their dreams!”

Dr. Ghavami has been offering rhinoplasty in Beverly Hills for many years, including ethnic rhinoplasty (as both primary and revision rhinoplasty). While he doesn’t believe that teenage rhinoplasty should serve as a replacement for the development of lifelong skills for building self esteem, he recognizes that young people can face criticism and abuse or bullying for their appearance.

Damage to a young person’s self-esteem can haunt them for the rest of their lives. Dr. Ghavami emphasizes the importance of identifying the motivations of a prospective patient before rushing to judgment or formulating the plan. In many cases, the decision about whether or not to proceed with teenage rhinoplasty can sometimes be made in collaboration with a therapist, if any doubts exist on the maturity level.

It is important for the young patient to have support from his or her family. It is also essential for young people to have realistic expectations about results, to understand the risks involved, and to not make an impulsive decision. Dr. Ghavami adds, “I often see teenage patients that are more well-informed and knowledgeable about the risks and benefits than their parents, thanks perhaps to the Internet.”

From a medical perspective, rhinoplasty can actually heal much easier if it is done at a younger age. A teenager’s skin is stronger and more elastic than an adult’s, and will accept the alterations to the nose more readily. The average age for which Dr. Ghavami performs teenage rhinoplasty is between 16 and 17.

It is often advantageous to return after a summer in high school and start senior year or the first year of college with the rhinoplasty out of the way, so the nose is no longer a concern. “Many of these patients are young and beautiful, but the nose is just way out of proportion and it detracts from the rest of their features,” says Dr. Ghavami. When the nose is in balance, the rest of facial beauty can shine.

The article Plastic Surgeon: In Support of Teenage Rhinoplasty appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.