Matt Barkley: National Player of the Year

Bruce Rollinson interview

Les and Beverly Barkley interview

Khaled Holmes interview

LOS ANGELES (December 13, 2007)-In its third decade of honoring the
nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in
partnership with RISE Magazine, today announced junior quarterback Matt
Barkley of Mater Dei High School (Santa Ana, Calif.) as its 2007-08
Gatorade National Football Player of the Year.Barkley is the
first-ever non-senior to be awarded Gatorade National Football Player of the Year honors.

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 Barkley as the nation's
best high school football player. A national advisory board comprised of
sportswriters and sport-specific experts from around the country
selected Barkley from more than one million high school football players
nationwide. Barkley is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade Male
High School Athlete of the Year Award, to be presented at a special
ceremony the afternoon prior to The ESPY Awards in July.

The 6-foot-3, 220-pound junior quarterback threw for 3,576 yards and 35
touchdowns,completing 63 percent of his passes (214-of-340) against
just nine interceptions. The first junior captain in Mater Dei history,
Barkley averaged325 yards and 3.2 touchdown passes per game in leading
the Monarchs (9-2) to the quarterfinals of PAC-5 Division Southern
Section 2007 Football Championships,where they fell to Serra League top
seed Crespi Carmelite High.

Barkley has maintained a 3.77 GPA in the classroom and enthusiastically
donates his time, spearheading the team's Monarchs for Marines
initiative, lending tangible support and morale-boosting contributions
to the Marines and Sailors of Camp Pendleton. As part of the effort,
Barkley has helped raise more than $100,000 for a charity benefiting the
families of wounded and fallen Marines.

"He's a great player," said rival Centennial High Head Coach Matt
Logan."He's very accurate, makes good decisions and great throws. He'll
probably be a Heisman Trophy candidate and probably NFL guy down the
line. I guess (Mater Dei alumnus) Matt Leinart is the benchmark and he's
definitely following in those footsteps."

"After his freshman season, I took him out to Athletes Performance and
had him throw to guys like (Jacksonville Jaguars RB) Maurice Jones-Drew,
(Tennessee Titans RB) LenDale White and (St. Louis Rams TE) Dominique
Byrd when they were just out of college," added Bill Cunerty, co-author
of The Complete Quarterback and a consultant for Arizona-based Athletes
Performance. "Each of them came off the field and asked me,'Coach, what
college team does this guy play for?' This kid started his first high
school game at Mater Dei at 14! For (Mater Dei head coach) Bruce
Rollinson to go away from the I-formation to the spread, that's
a miracle in itself, and he only did that because he had Barkley."

"Without question, Matt is deserving of recognition as the nation's best
high school football player based on his statistics on the field and the
impact his play had on Mater Dei's success," said Gatorade Senior
Vice President of Sports Marketing Jeff Urban."But he is also a shining
example to peers and aspiring young players of what a leader and a
student-athlete should be. He represents everything we hope for in a
Gatorade Player of the Year recipient."

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 RISE Magazine,
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.