WEST PALM BEACH – It is refreshing to have a different winner every single year for the most prestigious honors in Palm Beach County.
Two of the three nominees for Lou Groza Team of the Year were recent winners.
Atlantic (Delray Beach) won the top award in 2015 and 2018, while Palm Beach Central won it last year in 2021.
As a result, it is only right the Cardinal Newman would be crowned with the area’s best honor this year in 2022.
In a lot of ways, Cardinal Newman’s mention as Team of the Year makes sense.
Photo credits: Christian Proscia
Here’s how.
Led by head coach and Lou Groza Coach of the Year nominee Jack Daniels, Cardinal Newman finished the regular season with an undefeated record of 10-0.
It was the Crusaders first one since 1982, which means it took 40 years for this to happen again.
Also, Cardinal Newman finished the regular season as the only unbeaten team in Palm Beach County.
As a result, every local media outlet had the Crusaders ranked as their No. 1 overall team.
With that, the players were called to the West Palm Beach Marriott’s podium to accept their top award by Lou Groza Award Ceremony host and emcee Theo Dorsey. They chose senior offensive lineman and four-year letterman Brady Shea to speak on behalf of the team.
“It’s a blessing to be here,” Shea said. “All of the hard wouldn’t have been done without our coaches. We were nominated for three categories: Placekicker of the Year, Coach of the Year, and Team of the Year. We got Team of the Year, but truth be told, we have coaches of the year…We’re just thankful to be here. Newman is going to be around for a long time.”
Daniels was quite happy about the special team honor.
“That’s the ultimate goal to have the best team of the year,” Daniels said. “We had some other awards up, but this is the one that matters the most. They’re a great group of kids.”
Daniels recapped his team’s amazing year.
“We had an awesome season,” Daniels said. “We won 11 in a row. We beat everyone we played on our regular season schedule. We won our playoff game against Benjamin, which was a tough game. And we lost to Chaminade. We had a great run, but we just didn’t get it done.”
Asked about how Cardinal Newman can get past likely Class 1M state champion Chaminade-Madonna in next year’s 1M-Region 3 final, Daniels needed to think for a moment before responding to the question.
“I don’t know. I’m not really sure,” Daniels said. “We’ll work on it. We just gotta do a better job at coaching these kids. We got a great group of kids coming back.”
Daniels was the last head coach to legitimately lead a team to state title. This happened in 2013, when he anchored Dwyer’s magical 15-0 season that resulted in that team reaching the Class 7A summit.
Who will break the long state title drought we have here in Palm Beach County?
“I’m going to be next one to do it,” Daniels said with a smile.
OTHER LOU GROZA AWARD WINNERS
Coach of the Year: Kevin Thompson (Palm Beach Central)
Player of the Year: Senior defensive end DeeJay Holmes (Pahokee)
Placekicker of the Year: Junior kicker Jake Weinberg (Delray Beach American Heritage)
SIDE NOTE: The 31st Lou Groza Awards Ceremony was assembled by the Palm Beach County Sports Commission. Sponsors included ESPN West Palm, the Orange Bowl, and the Roofclaim.com Boca Raton Bowl, to name just three.
PHOTO CREDITS: Christian Proscia
