Gatorade's Player of the Year: Needham's Mac Steeves

Gatorade and USA Today's High School Sports section teamed up to award their Player of the Year award to a Needham Rocket earlier this week.

For the 2012-13 season, Needham High senior forward Mac Steeves has been named Player of the Year by the paper and sports drink maker. He lead the team to a 21-1-3 record this year.

"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 Steeves as Massachusetts’s best high school boys soccer player," according to a press release from Gatorade (see right).

Off the field, according to a release from Gatorade, Steeves has maintained a 3.06 GPA, and has volunteered as a youth soccer coach and worked on a fundraising campaign for breast cancer. 

In Dec. 2012, Steeves was also awarded the Division I MVP award from the New England Interscholastic Soccer Coaches Association. Coincidentally, the same award his father Jay Steeves won in 1983 when he played for the rockets.

A Patch correspondent caught up with Steeves in Oct 2011 after a game against Norwood. See that interview on the original article.